Decision Thinking: Problem Solving & Innovation in Organizations

This report delves into the concept of decision thinking within organizations, addressing the challenges and processes involved in its effective implementation. It identifies common obstacles such as lack of information, unsupported environments, non-acceptance by subordinates, ineffective communication, and incorrect timing. The report outlines a structured decision-thinking implementation process, including identifying the context, collecting information, considering alternatives, identifying pros and cons, selecting the best alternative, making the decision, and evaluating the impact of the decision. Drawing from various academic sources, the report provides insights into how organizations can improve their decision-making processes to achieve optimal outcomes and foster innovation. The assignment underscores the importance of addressing potential issues and leveraging appropriate tools and techniques to ensure successful decision implementation.

Running head: DECISION THINKING
DECISION THINKING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Problem faced by organizations:.....................................................................................................2
Decision Thinking implementation process....................................................................................3
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction:
Generally, design thinking is consisting of cognitive activities which are necessary during
a design process. These activities are frequently applied by design practitioners to external
problems often in the role of mediation between ourselves and our environments. Decision
thinking involves gathering relevant information and assessing alternatives resolutions to make
more deliberate and thoughtful decisions. Often such situation occurred where critical decision
needs to be taken among multiple options. Through proper utilization of decision thinking,
optimal decision can be conducted by the decision makers. To construct such process several
tools and techniques are used. When an issue needs to be solved and for that a decision has to be
taken, often there are several choices to make. However, to get the optimal result key decisions
makers must narrowing down the options depends on their possible outcome and impact.
(Shepherd, Williams & Patzel, 2015). A social problem of public sector delivery is identified
which was solved by proper decision thinking.
Problem faced by organizations: There are several obstacles faced by the most of the
organization associated with developing decision thinking.
Lack of Information: Lack of necessary information is one of the major problems for
every manager. Without proper information about any problems makes it harder to solve. For
making an optimal decision, organizations gather useful insights about the context and analyzed
it for further process. Lack of necessary data can hinder the decision thinking process.
Unsupported Environment: Environments plays a vital role to decide the nature of
decision. Mostly, organizational and physical environments impact the most on implementation

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of decision thinking (Potter, 2013). If the organizations surrounding are trustworthy and
employees are properly motivated, employees can take suitable decisions with confidence with
the manager’s support. Bad environments can hinder the decision thinking implementation for
opposite circumstances.
Non-Acceptance by subordinates: Generally, implementation of decision thinking
mostly effects the subordinates. Decision taken by managers must be accepted by every
subordinate in order to gain successful result. Most of the organizations faced problem while
implementing the decision thinking because all subordinates may not care about the decision
thinking.
Ineffective communication: communication is one of the issues which hinder the
decision thinking implementation in an organization. Ineffective communication can create a
huge gap to construct an optimal decision-making process. The managers are responsible for
communicating with every employee and acknowledged them about the decisions in precise,
simple and clear way.
Incorrect Timing: In decision thinking, the problem is merely occurred due to the bad
decisions. Often, the failure has been identified due to the incorrect timing for taking the
decision. Even though, organization’s take correct decision to implement, if the timing is not
right, it will not serve its purpose (Johnson, Williams & Nichols, 2013). For instance, if any
organization want to introduce any new business model, they must take the decision at right
time.
Decision Thinking implementation process

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Decision making is one of the most important aspects in every business. However, the
decision must be good to serve its purpose. Decision thinking implementation in an organization
is complex task which must be taken through proper consideration. To understand the decision
thinking implementation, process several peer literatures ware reviewed. Some of the literature
provides some crucial results which were previously unknown to our group. For instance,
Goetsch provides an analysis of decision thinking process and why everyone must follow the
process in order to ensure decision thinking is uniform (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).
Identify the context: Before starting decision thinking process, organizations must
realize why the decision is necessary. More clearly, organizations must define and identify the
type of decision which can serve the purpose of the implementation. Different decision can
create different consequences on the organization structure (Romiszowski, 2016). Before
decision thinking implementation, organization must check whether the chosen decision will
improve a service or product and how it will change the work process as well.
Information Collection: Collecting required information is one of the crucial tasks for
successful decision thinking implementation. For proper decision making all required data must
be gather and evaluated. For instance, if a marketing consulting firm want to consider a pay-per-
click advertising campaign, they must have appropriate information, such as which keywords do
customers use the most when searching results related to consulting (Erzurumlu & Erzurumlu,
2015). In some instances, the information necessary for it is internal (within organization), and in
other instances, information can be obtained from external sources.
Consider every alternative: Before taken any specific decision, all alternatives must be
considered regarding the decision thinking. Every organization must analyze every information

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and develop different alternatives. For the above scenario, consulting firm may consider
alternatives such as cost per thousand ads. Display ads or re marketing.
Identify Pros and Cons: Organizations must evaluate every option and compare their
pros and cons in order to eliminate and select decision. After evaluating all alternatives, the most
appropriate decision can be identified by eliminating the poor decisions. Chosen decision must
have the strongest chance among other alternatives.
Select the best alternatives: After ranking each alternative, the decision must be chosen
which can serve the purpose of it. This is one of the crucial stages as selected decision will
impact the whole organization structure (Schmoldt et al., 2013). Generally, a clear-cut decision
was taken but in complex cases several options are combined to achieve goals.
Make the Decision: After eliminating all the alternatives, the appropriate option must
put into action. Often, organization needs some external resources in order to support the
decision. Generally, several meetings are conducted with team leader and managers to explain
and understand the purpose of the decision (Conway & Gawronski, 2013). Organization’s also
analyzed the whole consequences of the decision as how it is affecting daily task and
productivity along with improvements.
Impact of the decision: After following the chosen alternatives for a while, they often
run a critical analysis to evaluate the impact of the decision. The probable outcome is compared
with the impact of the decision to understand the effectiveness of the decision in all over
organization.

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Conclusion:
Decision thinking implementation in an organization contains many crucial tasks which
must be constructed precisely in order to achieve the optimal goal. It has been found that, several
organizations faced critical issues while implementing the decision thinking. The possible
reasons are identified and discussed in the first section. The proper implementing process of the
decision thinking was also described. These theories are gathered from different literatures such
as journals and articles. Several authors provide many useful insights which helped the group to
understand the implementation process. Decision implementation involves handling the concerns
of these networks of related decisions to accomplish desired intent or purpose, individually or as
part of an organization.

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References:
Conway, P., & Gawronski, B. (2013). Deontological and utilitarian inclinations in moral decision
making: a process dissociation approach. Journal of personality and social
psychology, 104(2), 216.
Erzurumlu, S. S., & Erzurumlu, Y. O. (2015). Sustainable mining development with community
using design thinking and multi-criteria decision analysis. Resources Policy, 46, 6-14.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Johnson, F. A., Williams, B. K., & Nichols, J. D. (2013). Resilience thinking and a decision-
analytic approach to conservation: strange bedfellows or essential partners?. Ecology and
Society, 18(2).
Potter, W. J. (2013). An analysis of thinking and research about qualitative methods. Routledge.
Romiszowski, A. J. (2016). Designing instructional systems: Decision making in course
planning and curriculum design. Routledge.
Schmoldt, D., Kangas, J., Mendoza, G. A., & Pesonen, M. (Eds.). (2013). The analytic hierarchy
process in natural resource and environmental decision making (Vol. 3). Springer
Science & Business Media.
Shepherd, D. A., Williams, T. A., & Patzelt, H. (2015). Thinking about entrepreneurial decision
making: Review and research agenda. Journal of management, 41(1), 11-46.

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