Decision-Making Training

P r e f a c e

Welcome to the start of an exciting journey—a journey not in place and time, but into the complex cognitive processes of making decisions. It’s an important human endeavor, as well as an essential business skill. You have already made dozens to hundreds of decisions since you woke up this morning, so the journey is one that you’ve made many times. As you use this book, however, I ask that you take a fresh look, not at where you have arrived (the final decision or solution), but how you got there. It’s fascinating. If you have never before taken something apart to see how it works, then you’re in for a treat. I was sent to my room many times for such activities as a child, but I learned a lot.

Purpose of This Training Program

This book is designed for individuals who need to develop a training program to help others in the processes of decision making. Those activities can be quite complex, but using different kinds of tools can help a person approach them more easily and more effectively. In recent years, there has been a tendency for college courses and business seminars on this subject to become over-systematized. Graduate programs in management science, especially, have espoused elaborate procedures requiring an in-depth background in statistics, as well as sophisticated models into which massive amounts of data must be entered. Management science does have its place; however, most business and personal decisions simply don’t require all of this.

Typical managers, entrepreneurs, and employees can make nearly all the decisions and solve most of the problems they face by just using a few simple concepts. Seldom is it necessary to deal with primary research or economic forecasting projections. Your trainees may just need to do things like figure inventory requirements or staffing needs for their department or make dozens of other routine decisions that we face on a day-to-day basis. Sophisticated models would, for these purposes, probably be inefficient and just get in the way.

This book and training program offers a Back to Basics training approach to decision making that is appropriate for all but upper-level managers in large organizations, and even for them at times. It will help you design a training program that can be of real, practical value on the job. Your trainees need not be experts in statistics or business theory. Some of the concepts they’ll learn apply to any aspect of life; others only apply to certain kinds of business problems or decisions.

Acknowledgments

During the preparation of this Trainer’s WorkShop package, I have relied significantly on two of my previous publications. The first two sections of this book include excerpts and ideas from The Professional Trainer, published in the second edition in 2005 by Berrett-Koehler. The decision-making ideas and presentations in section four are distilled from Decision Making and Problem Solving in Management, published in its third edition in 2007 by Crown Custom Publishing.

I especially appreciate the support of my colleagues and my wife, Susan, in the creation of this project. Thanks, also, to Roger Williams, a friend and former business partner who was responsible for moving both previous books into a much wider market. Mark Morrow, former acquisitions editor for ASTD Press, was quite gracious and helpful in this endeavor—as were all the ASTD staff with whom I’ve worked over the years. One does not create a book like this without the help of many individuals. Some of them are listed on the copyright page (page ii). Most of my direct communications were with Justin Brusino, Carol Field, and Robin Bonner, although I know many others were involved. In this age of emails, FTPs, and other distance communication, an author can be surprisingly dependent on persons he or she has never met face to face. Thanks to all of them. Finally, I particularly appreciate the constructive comments from many of my former students and seminar participants, who have helped me define the needs of their organizations to improve decision making and problem solving.

Robert H. Vaughn, PhD

Arvon Management Services

January 2010

Section One:

Introduction

C h a p t e r   1

How to Use This Book Effectively

What’s in This Chapter?

Definition of decision making

Description of what’s in this book

Explanation of how to use this workbook most effectively

What Is Decision Making?

Everyone is required to make many decisions every day in their business and personal lives. Most decisions, by most people, are handled quickly and without much thought. But many of us procrastinate or over-analyze some of the most important decisions we must make. This book breaks down the process of making decisions into a structure that can relieve the delay and stress of choosing the right option when we face important opportunities or problems.

What’s in This Book?

This book contains the materials needed to develop a professional training program on the subject of decision making. Chapters 2 through 5 help you with the training part, including how to assess the need for training, design the training, conduct the training, and evaluate whether or not your efforts were successful. Chapters 6 through 8 provide sample agendas for half-day, full-day, and two-day programs, and provide additional recommendations for putting these programs together. The remaining chapters, 9 through 18, provide the subject matter content and support needed to conduct successful training—each of these chapters is a separate module that you will use in different combinations, depending on the length of the training and the audience. These modules cover the four main content areas of the decision-making process:

Chapter 9:Module 1 is an overview of the process we all use to make decisions.

Chapters 10–13:Modules 2, 3, 4, and 5 introduce the creative, or inductive, process and tools used to come up with various options from which to make a decision.

Chapters 14–16:Modules 6, 7, and 8 cover the analytic, or deductive, process and tools used to evaluate and narrow down options to determine a final choice.

Chapters 17–18:Modules 9 and 10 detail the human and irrational aspects of decision making, as well as how a decision is accepted within an organization.

The Modules

Each of the 10 modules includes the following information:

A one- or two-sentence overview gives a brief summary of the contents, plus information provided by the module and how it fits within the structure of decision-making training.

Training Objectives are two, three, or four key ideas that the participants should master as a result of the training.

Module Time offers a thumbnail schedule of approximately how much time should be spent on each of the major activities in the module. All modules are either one, one and a half, or two hours in length.

Module Materials lists items you should have available as you present each module, as well as some optional suggestions.

Module Preparation outlines what to do before the participants arrive.

Sample Agenda gives a timed list of activities referencing Power-Point slides to display and appropriate handouts and worksheets to use.

Trainer’s Notes help facilitate your training session, slide by slide. This same material is also available in the PowerPoint Notes section. Some step-by-step scripting is suggested, but use the notes included as guidelines and adapt them to your own presentation and facilitation style.

Learning Check Questions are a collection of questions (with answers) at the end of each module that you can use as either an oral or written test. These questions are Level 2 or 3 evaluation questions (see chapter 5 for an explanation of what the levels mean). Some discussion questions are short answer, whereas others are multiple choice. You will also find suggested handouts and worksheets already assigned for the class.

PowerPoint Slides (11 to 23) are included with each module. The slides are shown as thumbnails at the end of each module and are available as downloads from the web at www.astd.org/decisionmakingtraining. The slides are designed to be easily customizable and do not include PowerPoint features such as transitions, sounds, or other complicating factors. Make whatever changes are appropriate and add any backgrounds, company logos, sounds, transitions, style changes, and so on, that meet your needs. Also remember that not all computers and projectors will treat the files the same way, so you should definitely test the slides on the equipment you will actually be using. If the company or room in which you are doing training does not have PowerPoint capability, the slides can be printed and copied as transparencies for use on an overhead projector.

Worksheets are part of the training, with one to six included with each module.

Evaluations Instruments, one standard form for modules and one for the full program, are provided at the end of chapter 5.

See Online Materials, below. All of the PowerPoint slides, worksheets, and evaluations are available for download at www.astd.org/decisionmakingtraining.

How to Use This Workbook

This book covers the process of decision making. If you have not done organizational training before, you will find lots of helpful suggestions and references to make your initial effort easier and more professional. If you have done training before, you will probably want to skim through this part for both refreshers and new ideas as you approach the design of this program.

The module design of this book offers the trainer maximum flexibility to create the right training for the intended audience and time available. The suggested combinations are model programs, but the modules can be used individually or in any combination to meet your training needs.

Those familiar with our WorkShop books will notice that this format is a bit different from other titles in the series. The handouts and worksheets appear at the end of the chapter or module in which they are used, rather than together in a separate chapter.

Online Materials

The module training materials—including PowerPoint slides, worksheets, and evaluations—can be accessed at www.astd.org/decisionmakingtraining. All the materials can be easily downloaded and printed from this website. Follow the instructions in the Appendix, Using the Online Materials, at the back of this workbook.

Icons

What to Do Next

Study the contents of this workbook to familiarize yourself with the material it offers.

Download the online content and review the files so that you understand how the material is organized.

Section Two:

Training Basics

C h a p t e r   2

Assessing the Needs of Participants

What’s in This Chapter?

A discussion of typical learners and how to uncover specific training needs

How to ensure that the training is the right answer to the participants’ needs

How to conduct a simple needs analysis

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. That anonymous piece of wisdom comes from a sign my uncle has hanging on the porch of his bed-and-breakfast in Emigrant, Montana. You shouldn’t try to teach people something they don’t need to know. Find out first exactly what your participants need.

Who Are Your Typical Learners?

Everybody makes decisions, and the book you are now reading may, of course, be purchased by a variety of different organizations and independent trainers. Indeed, some aspects of decision-making training can benefit nearly anyone. But as a good trainer, you should know your audience and design the training around each class of participants.

Authors Kenneth W. Houp and Thomas E. Pearsall have suggested one method of classifying the audience in their book Reporting Technical Information:

Experts: People who have advanced degrees or at least several years of formal practice in a subject.

Technicians: People who know the nuts and bolts of a topic but perhaps not the theories behind it or the nuances involved. They could repair the machine, but not build it from scratch.

Executives: People who mainly have an interest in a subject, but who may not care about its actual working processes.

Laypersons: People who have only a passing knowledge and interest in the subject.

Mixed or Unknown Audiences: Just what the name implies.

Experts love facts, will challenge assumptions, and need to be convinced on a theoretical level. They are a very demanding audience. This book is not going to be useful for training people who are already experts in decision making.

Although a person may be expert in other areas, he or she may qualify only as a layperson in the subject of decision making. This book will be useful for training people who are experts in their own fields but need to know more about decision making.

The technician wants to know the mechanics and process of the topic. Technicians who make decisions will probably appreciate the structure that this training program provides in module 1 and further on. They will want to break the process apart and study each piece to make it better, and that is what this program will help them do.

The executive will look at making decisions from a management or cost-benefit or value perspective. In fact, executives may be your most eager audience. They will want to apply the concepts to their day-to-day jobs.

The layperson will be interested in the big picture, but will rely on the training for details and information at a more basic (rather than technical) level. Laypeople will respond to practical and personal anecdotal examples, such as deciding which car or house to buy. The exercises in this book will help personalize the training for them.

The combined or unknown audience can best be addressed by compartmentalizing the training. This way, information of interest to each learner can be extracted without requiring complete review and understanding of the whole package. This may mean that certain people will opt out of some module sessions, or that you may need to be flexible about how the material is presented, or that discussions need to be divided into subgroups of participants who have the same goals in common.

That’s why, to better understand your audience, you should perform some type of needs analysis.

The sources of data for this analysis will include (1) key individuals within (and sometimes outside) the organization, (2) job descriptions, (3) quantitative data such as costs, sales projections, or staffing requirements, and (4) any information about impending changes that will require participants to acquire new skills and knowledge.

Needs Analysis: Why Is Decision-Making Training Taking Place?

Why was it decided to offer this training? There must have been some reason—perhaps a few bad decisions were made and an executive decided that training was needed to remedy the situation. Whatever the reason, you need to know at least a little bit about who will be in the training program and what they are expected to get out of it.

Trainers don’t always get the opportunity to perform a needs analysis before they begin a training program. If the request for decision-making training came from a formal study, the proposal may offer useful information about why this training was suggested. Most of the time, however, requests for training come when someone with the authority suggests it: Why don’t we have a training program in decision making? As a result, you are now going through this book trying to figure out how to help make it happen.

If you find yourself with the opportunity to do a formal needs analysis, you should review one or more of the training books suggested in the For Further Reading section at the end of this book and choose a process that meets your needs and level of comfort. You’ll need to define how your participants should be making decisions, determine their current skills, and understand the difference between their expected and actual performance. From that analysis, you will be able to develop specific training objectives and choose which parts of this program will help to narrow the difference between expected and actual behaviors. It is beyond the scope of this book to provide the resources and specifics necessary to conduct a formal needs analysis, but we will look at some methods to use to conduct an informal analysis.

HOW CAN I PERFORM A SIMPLE NEEDS ANALYSIS?