ILM Level 3: ORPIC's Problem Solving and Decision Making Report

This report, prepared by Abdallah AL MAQBALI for an ILM Level 3 Certificate in Leadership and Management program, examines problem-solving and decision-making within the context of ORPIC (Oman Refineries and Petrochemicals Industrial Company). The report identifies key organizational challenges, particularly those related to risk management, and explores the impact of these challenges on the company's performance. It details the methods used to gather and interpret information, including the use of stakeholders, factual data, and opinions, as well as the application of a fishbone diagram for root cause analysis. The report also outlines techniques for evaluating potential solutions, such as straight comparison and weighted decision-making grids, and discusses various decision-making methods, including brainstorming, nominal group technique, and the Delphi method. The report emphasizes the importance of involving employees in the decision-making process to foster comprehensive and effective solutions, ultimately aiming to improve leadership and management practices within ORPIC.

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 Company: ORPIC
 Employee Name: Abdallah AL MAQBALI
 Employee Mail: [e-mail]
 Course: ILM Level 3 Certificate in Leadership and Management Program
 Assignment Title: Solving problems and making decision Assignment – Module 5

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Introduction
In our organization Oman Refineries petrochemicals Industrial Company (orpic) I am a
team leader in the operation department, the leaders are faced with various challenges which may
either require immediate decisions or long-term decisions. These challenges may hinder the
normal functioning of the organization creating the unfavourable working condition for its
employees. Therefore, for the company or organization to continue thriving in the market
decision making is crucial. The leaders should always be very vigilant when it comes to choosing
a way of action to the problem which that are away or cost-effective to implement.
1.1 The nature of the problem, its scope and its impact in (ORPIC) company
Oman Refineries petrochemicals industrial Company is faced by many problems like;
inability to nature talents, inability to harmonize the new assets but the major one is the risks.
Griffin (2019) defined risk as a chase that the company is unable to get adequate profit on the
investment. The nature of the risks may be favourable or unfavorable, and leaders are supposed
to take the opportunity of every aspect of a desirable situation. The unfortunate risks such as
employing the incompetence employees are disregarded because these will make the company
make loses and underperform.
There are various forms of risk which hinders the performances of the company. These
forms of risk range from inability to employ the competent workers, failure to engage public in
making plans, failure to follow the rules and regulation, not able to retain experienced employee
as a result of stiff completion, and inability to plan for the operation that results too often
shutdown of the projects.
According to Epstein and marc (2018), the inability to leaders risk in an organization can
lead to your business to incur extra cost in trying to fight the threats. The following are some of
the impacts that are as a result of poor risk management.
Firstly the unknown risk can make the company’s projects to slow down because this will
require a lot of time to comprehend, analyze them and then come up with some ways of
monitoring them. Secondly, apart from delaying the project, the project may completely fail due
to inability to manage the risk adequately in time. Finally, the inability to allow participation of
the leaders in decision making can act as a drawback to the company because the leaders always
want to know what the company is doing.
2.1 Gathering and interpretation of information to identify a possible solution to crises
Orpic Company can use the following sources to gather information in order to determine
the possible solution to various types of risks.
Stakeholders
This includes all individuals who are influenced or touched by the problem or even the
solution that is going to be made. The company starts by considering itself then goes down to the
top level manager and those close to the company such as clients are essential to identify. It’s
important to collect data from the employee either through a focus group or interviewing them.

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Facts and collected data
These facts can be gotten through research, observation of events as they happen results
that are gotten from experimentation and interviewing the experts. Research is very important
because it helps to predict the future and can be applied repeatedly. The information can also be
gotten from the company’s records which helps to predict the future outcomes of the company.
Opinions
The company can gather information through opinions from various decision makers
which can be important to the company decision for it to be successful. It is important for the
company to identify the truth and from the opinion given. This will help in saving the company
earlier enough before its run in traps that can result in company making loses.
Data interpretation
The latest risk which involved the bursting of water pipe belonging to Orpic Company and the
operational difficulties at Sohar power requires the collection of information and also
interpretation in order to identify the underlying cause and determine the possible solution that
will prevent such kind of risk from reoccurring. To analyze the information and determine the
potential cause of the above problem the company’s manager can use a fishbone diagram. Fish
born diagram, work in the same manner as brainstorming where each cause of a problem is
placed along a line which ends with a box that pinpoints the problem. This structure ends up
creating a fishbone diagram. At the beginning of the decision maker who is selected by the
company, they brainstorm to identify all the potential causes of the problem.
According to Weider, Nargundkar, et al, (2008) one way to identify the cause is by use of
post-it notes for each and every cause. This is followed by placing the cause along the line for
presentation on a large surface for easy viewing. If there are causes that are related to the other,
the company can make layers that will join them and extend the line from the first partition. As
the company continues to develop the diagram, the causes should be arranged toward the
problem to illustrate the importance. To end constructing the fishbone diagram the must identify
all possible causes before coming up with a potential solution. Below is a fishbone diagram.
Cause 5 Cause3 cause 1 g
Cause W cause 4 cause 2
From the above diagram, the company can come up with the possible causes of the problem
which may include the following.
Employee. There are few workers in the company and those that are there are
incompetent in their work. Therefore the company is faced with a problem of mismanagement
which could have resulted in the operational difficulties. The company should try as much as
possible to maintain its competent employee to avoid unnecessary risk.
Problem

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Recourses is another cause of the risk that the Orpic Company is facing. For the company
to run well with minimal crises resources must be utilized in the right way. Any misuse of
resources will cause the company to run in an unstable manner and this cause employee to
boycott due to lack of proper payment and motivation.
The environment is a major risk that is facing the Orpic Company. The company does not
engage the community as well as some of the worker in making their decision. This creates an
unstable atmosphere for the company to make an effective decision. Therefore the company need
to carry the SWOT and PESTEL analysis in the area they are operating in.
2.2 A summary on how to evaluate the option to make a decision
Once the option has been outlined and successfully been considered, each potential
solution must be critically assessed in order to come up with the most suitable solution. There
different ways of conducting this. The most simple and cheap way of assessing the option is by
use of decision-making grid which are of two types; the straight comparison decision making a
grid and the weighted decision making a grid. In summary, we will start by discussing how Orpic
Company can use straight comparison decision making grids to evaluate options.
Straight comparison decision-making grid
To start with straight comparison decision making grid is made with all possible option
outlined against each other. For instance, in our case, we can decide to train the incompetence
employee or we can decide to retrench them. These options are compared until the grid is
completed. After a careful comparison is done the option that appears the most in the grid is
selected as the best option that a company can apply in solving the risk. In some cases, there
might be a situation where the two option shows the equal numbers of occurrence it is wise to
choose the original straight comparison.
Weighted decision-making grid
A weighted decision-making grid is drawn where all factors are indicated on one side of
the grid and options on the other side of the grid. Each option on the grid is scored against each
factor in the grid (Elwyn, 2013). After scoring each option each factor is assigned a numerical
value based on their weight in order of their importance. Then the sum total of the score is done
and the option with the highest score is picked. For example, if we have an option of allowing
the community to be participating in decision making there could be some factors that could
hinder the participation. This option is compared with factors until the company gets to a
decision that it will allow community participation in decision making under a certain factor.
3.1 Decision-making techniques used to evaluate the option to arrive at the best solution
According to Hubbard (2017), decision-making technique is categorized into three, that is
random, intuition and analytical. To make a rational decision we use the analytic method to
improve on our ability to deciding while using the expert intuition. Islam (2010), argued that in
order to arrive at a sound conclusion with concentrate decision we must involve every employee

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in the process of making the decision. Therefore the group decision method is very important
because the company will have a lot of alternatives to choose from. For the company to manage
the risk and put on place measures it is going to employ the following three decision-making
methods; Brainstorming, nominal group technique as well as Delphi technique.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is the most popular group method that is employed in many industries in
order to come up with a variety of idea. This type of group decision making works in a manner
that the team leader presents the problem, in this case, the risks, clarifies the guidelines and then
allow the members to offer ideas in a round robin manner (Rajkovic, 2011). Every idea that the
member suggest is written down by the leader in a way that every member in a group can see.
This method is not meant to solve a problem but it is essential for generating ideas. In the group
members are not allowed to criticize another member idea. Orpic Company can use this method
to allow its employee to generate ideas that can help in managing various forms of risk.
Nominal group technique
This type of group decision-making technique is used to give a variety of idea concerning
the certain issue at hand and give each member equal chances in the process of developing the
various idea (delbecq et al, 1975). In this method, the employee will spend ten minutes to write
down their idea concerning the risk without discussing with each other. After writing they will
present their idea personally. Then the leader will write all ideas in a flip chart and encourage the
employee to add to what is on the chart. Then the leader will ask the employee to vote for the
ideas privately. Immediately after voting the employee will give their various opinion until a
common decision is achieved.
Delphi method
Delphin is a method of revising the ideas of a group of employees who did not meet. This
method helps the employee to come to a common agreement without manipulation of the strong
employee in the group (Vernon, 2009). This method is a structured variant of the usual expert
polls and is mainly employed for the purpose of forecasting.in this method the questionnaire is
sent through the mail to a group of employees then the administrator(leader) combines the results
and then send another questionnaire together with the results of the first round. The administrator
in our case the manager make a decision which is based on the results. This can be a good
method of generation options of controlling risks as it encourages to arrive at a common decision
without any influence from a strong employee in the organization.
4.1 Plan the implementation and communication of the decision
According to Tribe (2011), before the company fulfills its conclusion, it must make an in-
depth insight of it to make sure there are no errors that have occurred in the process. After
identifying the causes of risk and remedies to these causes it is important first to engage all the
stakeholder for them embrace the upcoming changes. In the process of implementing there must
be a comprehensive discussion with stakeholders of the company to allow them to pinpoint the
flow, make their recommendation and support the company’s decision maker conclusion. As a

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team leader in the orpic company, I will present the decisions to my colleague before
implementing it. This will ensure that the decision that has been made will address various forms
of risk without it failing at any point.
Scholes, Eileen & Clutterbuck (1998) note that once the company has made the decision
it has to relay the information to everyone who is influenced by it in a way that will engage as
well as inspire the people to continue working. The Orpic company needs to engage its
stakeholders by explaining how it arrived at that particular decision. This can be done by team
leader providing more information on risks and the benefits that will be accompanied by the
changes for them to own and support the changes. If people happen to identify the flaw, the
company should embrace their view and review its plan. If the decisions are agreed by all the
employee in Orpic company then this is the best time to put the decisions in action. Orpic
manager should then set a date as to when the new decisions is going to be effective and ouline
who (team leader) will reinforce the it.
4.2 Monitoring and review technique used to evaluate outcomes
There are various methods that can be used to monitor a particular program but the most
appropriate in this case is project evaluation review technique which is used to indicate the time
that is taken in order to complete a project. This method can be useful in monitoring the decision
Orpic company made on managing the various form of riks. For instances, it can use this method
to assess the work is done and time used by a particular group of people. As a team leader in the
Orpic company, this method can help to identify the employees who are lazy as well as
incompetent in their work. This will help in eliminating the risk of employing incompetent
workers. This technique also helps in coordinating and planning of all activities that are going to
be carried out to completion of the projects. Also, it helps manages in allocating enough budget
to the projects.
Also, Orpic company can employ key performance indicator on yearly bases in order to
evaluate the employee’s contribution to the company in achieving its goals (Appleton, 2017).
This technique will help in eliminating the incompetent employees, retaining and promoting the
hardworking ones. Finally, the company can use a task book where the employee is evaluated on
the monthly bases to indicate their performance toward achieving the company’s goal. These
strategies will helps in employing competent individuals.
Conclusion
To sum it all company are faced with numerous challenges that may hinder the running
of the company. Therefore managers and decision maker have to derive a solution to these
challenges. For them to do this, they must be willing to sit down, discuss the matter at hand and
come up with a solution for the wellbeing of the company or otherwise the company will land on
crises. Also, leaders are required to monitor the employee regularly using various methods such
as key performance indicator in order to ensure the smooth running of the company.

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