BUS104 Discovering Management: Decision Making in Wivenhoe Dam

This case study analyzes the decision-making processes surrounding the Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland, Australia, focusing on events leading up to and during a significant flood event. It highlights the challenges faced by water engineers and managers in balancing water supply needs with flood mitigation responsibilities. The study identifies the problem as a structured yet ill-structured one, requiring both programmed and creative decision-making approaches. It critiques the former water minister's reliance on potentially inappropriate advice and examines the application of different managerial decision-making approaches, particularly bounded rationality and satisficing. The case also touches on the importance of clear communication and accurate information in supporting effective decision-making within the management and staff. Desklib offers similar solved assignments and resources for students.

Running Head: Decision Making Management
Decision Making Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Decision Making Management

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Decision Making Management
Table of Contents
Response to question 1-.............................................................................................................3
Response to question 2-.............................................................................................................3
Response to question 3-.............................................................................................................4
Response to question 4-.............................................................................................................5
References and Bibliography.....................................................................................................6

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Decision Making Management
Response to question 1-
Wivenhoe is the largest dam which is built by the Queensland government as a result
of the devastating flood in Brisbane in 1974. This dam was built with an aim to supply water
and protect the city from similar events of flood in future. The flood mitigation system was
built to store upstream flood waters temporarily and then release it in a controlled manner for
minimising the flow of the Brisbane. This dam is managed by the personnel of Queensland
legislation and they are required to follow the operating manual so that losses from the water
release can be controlled as 50 percent of the catchment of Brisbane river lies below the dam.
On 5th January 2011, an alert has been received from the engineering officer of Wivenhoe
Dam and they were warned about the significant rainfall of 100mm to 200mm which may
take place in next few days. However, the personnel of the dam lead the water level to rise
instead of draining the flood compartment of the dam. As a result, it eroded the capacity of
the dam for string the flood and this delayed action led an emergency release of the water on
11th January and it threatened the stability of the dam. Though there was a prior advice from
the government about the alarming state of the flood if the water is released in Brisbane still
the flood took place causing enormous damage in both of the cities.
Response to question 2-
After the flood incident on 13th January 2011 it has been found that the dam has been
operating in breach and as per the reports of the Commission and it is necessary to investigate
the documents which have been prepared the flood engineers by the Crime and Misconduct
Commission. After going through the evidence it was clear that the water engineers were
working focusing on managing the dwindling water supplies over the decades for guaranteed
water supplies if there is continuation of draught in future. They would have also

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experimented with the patterns of water use for different scenarios and advice the
governments about the water restrictions policies along with their implementation. At the
same time, they could have managed decreasing the levels of water along with the land plot
which emerged as a resukt of decrease in the water levels in Wivenhoe dam and other dams.
According to the national president of the public Works Engineering, Australia, the water
engineers should have learnt the lessons from the previous flood events which took place
during the summers of 2010 and 2011.
Response to question 3-
Based on the case study it is evident that the type of the problem which is portrayed in
the here is a structured problem. The problem has been referred here as structured problem
because the decision making team is familiar with the problem but this can said as an ill
structured problem as it does not take place at regular intervals, it is poorly understood and it
is required to deal in a creative and innovative manner (Zhang, Lu and Gao 2015). On the
other hand, for dealing with this structure but an ill structure problem it is required to have a
good decision making process. Here, in this case study the decision making which is required
is the programmed decision making since the decision makers are aware of the solutions and
they have found various instance previously related to the this type of problem (Rajeshkanna
and Arunesh 2018). The reason why the flood became severe because the former water
minister of Queensland did not implement it in a proper way. He took advice from water grid
manager and this person is not responsible for the managing the dams. The former water
minister was already briefed by the Bureau of Meterology in October 2010 about this
alarming situation and therefore, he should have sought advice from the department of
government which is responsible for the mitigation of flood and safety of the dams.

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Response to question 4-
There are three approaches to managerial decision making. These three approaches
are-
 Rational Decision Making
 Bounded Rationality and Satisficing
 Escalation of Commitment
Here, in this case study the decision approach can be referred to the Bounded Rationality and
satisficing. In this type of approach of decision making the managers are rational within the
limits of their own abilities as well as the situation of the decision. Furthermore, the decision
makers will not be provided with all the information which are important to solve the
problem and at the same time few of the information may become too expensive to obtain
(Wu, Olson and Dolgui 2015). This approach is different from the rational approach because
the managers are limited with limited capacity and the situation of decision making is more
complex. Moreover, after the incident took place in 2011, later in 2012 it has been found by
CMC that concerned water engineers have acted appropriately during this stressful situation
and few evidences have been found which showed that operating manual of the dam was
contradictory which implies that there were few evidences which portrayed the misconduct of
the engineers among themselves. Therefore, it can be said that this showcase a perfect
instance of consistent, clear and accurate information in the work place and this has served as
an aid for the processes of decision making in terms of both management along with the staff.

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References and Bibliography
Calabrese, M., Iandolo, F., Caputo, F. and Sarno, D., 2018. From mechanical to cognitive
view: The changes of decision making in business environment. In Social Dynamics in a
Systems Perspective (pp. 223-240). Springer, Cham.
Hung, K.C., Kalantari, M. and Rajabifard, A., 2016. Methods for assessing the credibility of
volunteered geographic information in flood response: A case study in Brisbane,
Australia. Applied Geography, 68, pp.37-47.
Lehnert, K., Park, Y.H. and Singh, N., 2015. Research note and review of the empirical
ethical decision-making literature: Boundary conditions and extensions. Journal of Business
Ethics, 129(1), pp.195-219.
Mardani, A., Jusoh, A., Nor, K., Khalifah, Z., Zakwan, N. and Valipour, A., 2015. Multiple
criteria decision-making techniques and their applications–a review of the literature from
2000 to 2014. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 28(1), pp.516-571.
Proske, U., 2016. Holocene freshwater wetland and mangrove dynamics in the eastern
Kimberley, Australia. Journal of Quaternary Science, 31(1), pp.1-11.
Rajeshkanna, A. and Arunesh, K., 2018. Role of Decision Tree Classification in Data
Mining. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, 119(15), pp.2533-2543.
Wu, D., Olson, D.L. and Dolgui, A., 2015. Decision making in enterprise risk management:
A review and introduction to special issue.
Zhang, G., Lu, J. and Gao, Y., 2015. Multi-level decision making. Springer-Verlag Berlin
Heidelberg.