Making Effective Workplace Decisions Essay

,.,decision making – nerovivo Steps outlined in this article will help you to determine if you’re making, or that you have made, the right decision about a pending issue. Do you ever wonder how to know that you’re making, or that you have made, the right decision? Decisions are an important of lives. Every day, we make decisions in our home life and work life that will impact our future. That is why having the skills to make good, solid decisions is important. This article outlines a 6 Step Process that will help you to make wise and confident decisions. The objective of making a decision is to choose your best alternative – based on the facts provided – that will lead to a productive end result. These steps will help anyone (at home, school or in business) that has to make decisions. They can be applied when making any decision at any time, from the start of the problem-solving process to the finishing stages of implementing the course of action. Step 1: Identify the problem Read This Next * Workplace Stress and the Decision Making Process * Website Design Trends * Five Steps for Effective Problem Solving in the Workplace A problem can be identified as a difficult issue that needs to be resolved. Quite possibly, failure to resolve the issue could lead to additional, more crucial issues. Most problems in business exist in the form of a statement or a question. For example, a statement problem in might be â€Å"Choose the best vendor to match our product budget.† Likewise, a question problem might be â€Å"What type of product should we develop?† For both types of problems, several sets of conclusions may be derived. Each one making a different impact. When you understand exactly what the problem is, you can use sound judgment to render a decision. Step 2: Determine who should be involved During the first stages of the decision-making process, you should determine who should be involved. This lets you know whether or not the problem would best be solved by forming a team to examine the facts. If so, the team can make recommendations based on those facts. Decisions in the workplace are commonly done as a team. It can be a powerful way to make efficient and expedient progress. The greatest benefit is the combination of talent and creativity that exists when joining heads. When everyone contributes to effective brainstorming, the ideas are compared and different perspectives are examined. A team is far more likely to discover more creative and innovative solutions than one would individually. Step 3: Evaluate the alternatives When you evaluate the alternatives, consider how the making the decision (or even not making the decision) is going to impact any future objectives. Here’s an example: An employee asks a manager for permission to work from home a few days a week. The manager is pondering impact of this decision on the rest of your staff. Things to consider are whether or not the workload can be done from home, and whether the same permission can be granted to the other employees. Some possible alternatives could be as simple as shortening the workday on Fridays. To do this, the manager could require that the employees, as a team, meet certain stated objectives during the week in order to work fewer hours on Friday. This example shows how a decision that, at first, seems to be related to only one person, is in fact a catalyst for impacting the entire department. Step 4: Examine the pros and cons What are the positive and negative results associated with the decision and the related alternatives. For example: There is a question of whether or not to launch a new product at this time. Doing so could put the company ahead of the competition by at least 6 months. However, there could be a problem with quality if the production is rushed. There hasn’t been enough testing and documentation, so quality assurance is moderate at best. The benefit is that you’re outshining the competition, but the risk is that the company could suffer scrutiny for putting out a faulty, non-tested product. Step 5: Making the final decision A large part of making the final decision will be your ability to address the needs of the organization. There will be short-term needs and long-term needs. What are the expectations of the company administrators? The final decision should be in line with the company goals and objectives. In other words, the final decision has to be supported by a solid purpose. Consider this: You don’t make a decision that will cut production by half, if the original mission (purpose) was to increase sales by 30%. Be sure that your choice is based on more on company vision, rather than personal opinion. Narrow your information down to what is vitally important making the decision. For any decision that you make today, always consider the impact that it will make on future Read more at Suite101: Making Effective Workplace Decisions | Suite101.com http://roslyn-johnson.suite101.com/making-effective-workplace-decisions-a358141#ixzz1nnl02Xob