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Decision Making: Types of Problems, Type of Decisions

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Information System (CS507)
LESSON 15
Decision Making
There are some of the critical decisions that top managers face every day. How to decide whether to sell or
spin off a business? Should the supplier relationships be renegotiated? What can be done to improve
decision-making competency throughout your organization?
To capture maximum value, executives not only must make the right decisions, but also must negotiate
skillfully. Since most business decisions involve other parties, it is essential for managers to understand their
individual role as it relates to other decision makers, as well as how to use this knowledge to create the
strongest possible negotiating position.
Hence, keeping in mind the importance of decision making for managers, information systems are also
designed in a way to help them out to control operations and perform their managerial responsibilities more
effectively.
Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action from among multiple alternatives.
Cognitive process is the mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception,
reasoning, and judgment.
· Every decision-making process produces a final choice. It can be an action or an opinion.
· It begins when we need to do something but we do not know what.
· A decision-making is a reasoning process which can be rational or irrational, and can be based on explicit
assumptions or tacit assumptions.
15.1 Types of Problems
Nature of problem determines the approach to decision making to be followed to solve it. There are three
broad categories.
· Structured: Well-structured problems are constrained problems with convergent solutions that engage the
application of a limited number of rules and principles within well-defined parameters.
· Unstructured: Problems possess multiple solutions, solution paths, fewer parameters which are less
manipulate able, and contain uncertainty about which concepts, rules, and principles are necessary for the
solution or how they are organized and which solution is best.
· Semi-structured ­ a gray area lies between the structured and unstructured range. Here part of the
decision can be specified allowing for certain factors out of control.
Types of problems
A newly formed organization may be taken as an unstructured organization due to lack of defined
organizational structure, operating procedures. The question that a problem is structured or unstructured
is not dependant on the organization being structured or unstructured. Even a highly structured
organization can face novel and unprecedented problems.
Example-Daily Life
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Information System (CS507)
· Unstructured ­ Mr. A thinks that he has to wake up at any time in the morning,
· Structured ­ Mr. A is a soldier and he has to wake at 6 in the morning when army bugle is played/blown.
This procedure will be followed no matter what.
· Semi Structured ­ Waking up is subject to a clock alarm (procedure), but it can be turned off as waking
up at that time is also subject to some sort of individual judgment.
Example ­ Business
Bank has a policy that two persons, Mr. A & B would open the bank 30 min before bank timings, so that
bank should be open for public dealing at 9 a.m. No other situation has been forecast in the policy.
· Structured ­ Staff shall be in the bank by 8:00 a.m. to ensure opening for public dealing at 9 a.m. This
procedure will be followed no matter what.
· Semi Structured ­ Branch Manager is informed a day earlier that Mr. A will be unable to make it the next
day. Rest is left at the discretion of branch manager's judgment to decide who else is to be made
responsible to open the branch in the morning.
· Unstructured ­ Employees start reaching before 9 a.m. but branch is not open. The decision taken by
employees there and then would be totally unstructured due to the novelty of the situation arose.
15.2 Type of Decisions
All problems require decision making, however the nature of problem determines how it should be
approached. The decision making process There are three types of decisions
· Structured
· Non-structured
· Semi Structured
Structured decisions
Where problem is recurring and repetitive, the common factors can be identified in order to identify a
particular course of action. Due to which defined set of procedure can be devised for their solution.
Hence,
Procedures for obtaining the best solution are standardized
o
Objectives are clearly defined
o
Clearly specified inputs and outputs
o
Un-structured decisions
When problems are non routine, critical and novel in nature, they require individual judgment, evaluation
and insight varying on case-to-case basis. There is no well understood or agreed upon procedure for
handling these problems. For such situations, predefined policy cannot be devised. However, once the
problem has been figured out, a policy may be devised to handle the problem in future. This can make
the problem look like as structured one giving regard to the role of individual judgment.
Semi-structured Decisions
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Information System (CS507)
The term is used to refer to the grey area of decisions which lie between the two extremes. Some (but
not all) structured phases and often solved using standardized solution procedures and human judgment.
In small organizations decisions are usually transferred from form top to bottom. In large organizations the
decision are usually taken based on meeting of all departmental heads. The fact is that whether decisions are
taken by single person or all in a formal meeting is not the sole determinant of a decision being structured
or unstructured. Rather it simply shows the complexity of the problem.
15.3 Decision-making process
·
Intelligence ­ searching for conditions in the environment that call for decisions
·
Design ­ inventing, developing, and analyzing possible courses of action
·
Choice ­ selecting a course of action from those available
·
Implementation ­ implementing the selected course of action
·
Monitoring ­ checking the consequences of the decision made after implementation
Phases for Decision Making ­ Example
Any deviation from the norm should be reported as an exception for managers' attention. As it is the
case with "Debtors Aging Analysis". (Debtors Aging analysis is the stratification of trade receivables in
accordance of period of time since they have been due.)
Intelligence: Identifying the problems occurring in an organization. MIS is the primary source for the
managers to be aware of red-alerts.
Design: Once the debtors have been analyzed on the basis of pattern of collection, options can be
generated to improve collection rates. For example
Offering early payment discounts.
o
Devising various collection strategies for
o
various classes of customer based on
o
Collection period
o
Discounts rates
o
Strengthening sales department for collecting revenue through negotiation and settlement.
o
Choice: Now a selection has to be made which single strategy or combination of strategies should be
implemented.
Here a DSS system can be used to simulate the consequences of each alternative generated.
o
The diversity and complexity of the alternatives generated would determine how extensive the DSS
o
system should be.
Implementation: Now the stage comes of communicating the policy approved to the interested and
relevant: for example
Conducting training sessions of sales department or issuing an office memorandum.
o
Communicating and convincing customers of the new credit terms so as to avoid confusion.
o
Once again MIS will be used to record and report the results/effects of the policy.
o
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Monitoring: Once the decision has been implemented, the effects and responses should be monitored. The
quality of decisions can be judged only once after they have been implemented. Monitoring helps in
evaluating the quality of decisions that have been made. This may include the following:
Quantifying the speed in the process of recovery.
o
Discount costs being born by the organization.
o
Customer response in accepting the entire policy.
o
Once again MIS will be used to record and report the results / effects of the policy.
o
Phases
Example
Intelligence
Debtor's aging report
Design
Devise a discount or
training policy
Choice
Select a discount/training
policy
Implementation
Implement the
discount/training policy
Monitoring
Evaluate recovery patterns,
relevant costs involved.
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Table of Contents:
  1. Need for information, Sources of Information: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Sources
  2. Data vs. Information, Information Quality Checklist
  3. Size of the Organization and Information Requirements
  4. Hierarchical organization, Organizational Structure, Culture of the Organization
  5. Elements of Environment: Legal, Economic, Social, Technological, Corporate social responsibility, Ethics
  6. Manual Vs Computerised Information Systems, Emerging Digital Firms
  7. Open-Loop System, Closed Loop System, Open Systems, Closed Systems, Level of Planning
  8. Components of a system, Types of Systems, Attributes of an IS/CBIS
  9. Infrastructure: Transaction Processing System, Management Information System
  10. Support Systems: Office Automation Systems, Decision Support Systems, Types of DSS
  11. Data Mart: Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), Types of Models Used in DSS
  12. Organizational Information Systems, Marketing Information Systems, Key CRM Tasks
  13. Manufacturing Information System, Inventory Sub System, Production Sub System, Quality Sub system
  14. Accounting & Financial Information Systems, Human Resource Information Systems
  15. Decision Making: Types of Problems, Type of Decisions
  16. Phases of decision-making: Intelligence Phase, Design Phase, Choice Phase, Implementation Phase
  17. Planning for System Development: Models Used for and Types of System Development Life-Cycle
  18. Project lifecycle vs. SDLC, Costs of Proposed System, Classic lifecycle Model
  19. Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD), Design of the information flow, data base, User Interface
  20. Incremental Model: Evaluation, Incremental vs. Iterative
  21. Spiral Model: Determine Objectives, Alternatives and Constraints, Prototyping
  22. System Analysis: Systems Analyst, System Design, Designing user interface
  23. System Analysis & Design Methods, Structured Analysis and Design, Flow Chart
  24. Symbols used for flow charts: Good Practices, Data Flow Diagram
  25. Rules for DFD’s: Entity Relationship Diagram
  26. Symbols: Object-Orientation, Object Oriented Analysis
  27. Object Oriented Analysis and Design: Object, Classes, Inheritance, Encapsulation, Polymorphism
  28. Critical Success Factors (CSF): CSF vs. Key Performance Indicator, Centralized vs. Distributed Processing
  29. Security of Information System: Security Issues, Objective, Scope, Policy, Program
  30. Threat Identification: Types of Threats, Control Analysis, Impact analysis, Occurrence of threat
  31. Control Adjustment: cost effective Security, Roles & Responsibility, Report Preparation
  32. Physical vs. Logical access, Viruses, Sources of Transmissions, Technical controls
  33. Antivirus software: Scanners, Active monitors, Behavior blockers, Logical intrusion, Best Password practices, Firewall
  34. Types of Controls: Access Controls, Cryptography, Biometrics
  35. Audit trails and logs: Audit trails and types of errors, IS audit, Parameters of IS audit
  36. Risk Management: Phases, focal Point, System Characterization, Vulnerability Assessment
  37. Control Analysis: Likelihood Determination, Impact Analysis, Risk Determination, Results Documentation
  38. Risk Management: Business Continuity Planning, Components, Phases of BCP, Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
  39. Web Security: Passive attacks, Active Attacks, Methods to avoid internet attacks
  40. Internet Security Controls, Firewall Security SystemsIntrusion Detection Systems, Components of IDS, Digital Certificates
  41. Commerce vs. E-Business, Business to Consumer (B2C), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), E-Government
  42. Supply Chain Management: Integrating systems, Methods, Using SCM Software
  43. Using ERP Software, Evolution of ERP, Business Objectives and IT
  44. ERP & E-commerce, ERP & CRM, ERP– Ownership and sponsor ship
  45. Ethics in IS: Threats to Privacy, Electronic Surveillance, Data Profiling, TRIPS, Workplace Monitoring