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This two-piece paper describes how to solve a practical decision problem using decision theory. The first part emphasizes the high importance of a solid structuring of the decision situation in objectives, alternatives, and uncertainties. It is shown how to proceed in this step with the support of a decision analyst. The following second part uses...
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... quality of life" is confirmed as a strategic objective. Figure 2 shows Peter's objectives network as it can be deduced at the end of the entire session. All objectives ultimately contribute to maximizing the strategic objective of maximizing quality of life, which is presented at the first level. ...
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... Still others have already clarified the latter and are considering which university would be best for them. In its essentials, KLUG could also be applied to other career choices of young individuals, such as choosing majors, final theses, a job, or a field of work (e.g., Siebert & von Nitzsch, 2020). Although several research groups propose different avenues for analytically approaching a complex decision, there is a common theoretical agreement on the cognitive steps of a decision-analytical process. ...
At the end of high school, teenagers must deal with the first life‐changing decision of determining what to do after graduation. For these decisions, adolescents need to be able to make good choices. However, most schools have not yet implemented decision trainings into their curricula. A new intervention called “KLUGentscheiden!” was developed to train complex decision‐making in high school students to close this gap. The intervention targets three key components of good decision‐making: envisioning one's objectives, identifying relevant alternatives, and comparing the identified alternatives by a weighted evaluation. We assumed that successfully training those decision‐analytical steps should enhance self‐perceived proactive decision‐making skills. In addition, the training should also enhance self‐assessed career choice self‐efficacy. The intervention was evaluated in a pseudorandomized control study including 193 high school students. Compared to a control group, the intervention group significantly increased proactive decision‐making skills and career choice self‐efficacy. Although different long‐term evaluations are still pending, the KLUGentscheiden! intervention provides an important tool to train complex decision‐making in high‐school students. It also has the potential to apply to other career choices of young individuals, such as choosing majors, a final thesis, a job, or a field of work.
... He is then presented with a master list of about 70 objectives from which he can add aspects that have been overlooked so far. The subsequent structuring of Objective hierarchy in the Entscheidungsnavi (The example is taken from the paper by Siebert and von Nitzsch [17].) the objectives is technically supported in the tool by an easy-to-use graphical interface, but in terms of content the DM is required to recognize the means-end relations himself and to classify them accordingly in the hierarchy (Fig. 1). When creating the hierarchy possible redundancies between the objectives can be detected and avoided. ...
Decisions with multiple objectives are challenging for many individuals. The decision problem has to be structured appropriately (decision frontend) and the decision makers` preferences have to be elicited and aggregated (decision backend). There are dozens of decision support systems helping decision makers to deal with their decision problems and thereby promote the quality of one concrete decision. However, most of them require expertise in decision making. Furthermore, they neglect the improvement of decision-making skills, which lead to better and higher quality decisions in general, for decision makers with little expertise and experience. In this paper, we introduce the Entscheidungsnavi, a freely available decision support system for multi-criteria decision making, which combines the basic functionalities of a decision support system with a training to improve the user`s decision-making skills. Based on the concepts of value-focused thinking, multi-attribute utility theory and various debiasing techniques, the decision maker can practice his proactive decision-making skills by going through three main phases: structuring the decision situation, developing the consequence table, evaluating the alternatives. Moreover, we report on the experience gained so far from using the Entscheidungsnavi and what conclusions can be drawn from it.
At the end of high school, teenagers have to deal with their first life-changing decisions when deciding what to do after having graduated from school. For these decisions, adolescents need to be able to make good decisions. However, most schools have not implemented decision trainings into their curricula yet. A new intervention called "KLUGentscheiden!" was developed to train complex decision-making in high school students to close this gap. The intervention targets three key components of good decision making: envisioning one's objectives, identifying relevant alternatives, and comparing the identified alternatives by a weighted evaluation. We assumed that successfully training those decision-analytical steps should enhance self-perceived proactive decision-making skills. In addition, the training should also enhance self-assessed career choice self-efficacy. The intervention was evaluated in a pseudo randomized control study including 193 high school students. Compared to a control group, the intervention group significantly increased proactive decision-making skills and career-choice self-efficacy. Although different long-term evaluations are still pending, the KLUGentscheiden! intervention could provide an important tool to train complex decision-making in high-school students. In its essentials, it could also be applied to other career choices of young individuals, such as choosing majors, a final thesis, a job, or a field of work.
Decision sciences are in general agreement on the theoretical relevance of decision training. From an empirical standpoint, however, only a few studies test its effectiveness or practical usefulness, and even less address the impact of decision training on the structuring of problems systematically. Yet that task is widely considered to be the most crucial in decision-making processes, and current research suggests that effectively structuring problems and generating alternatives—as epitomized by the concept of proactive decision making—increases satisfaction with the decision as well as life satisfaction more generally.
This paper empirically tests the effect of decision training on two facets of proactive decision making—cognitive skills and personality traits—and on decision satisfaction. In quasi-experimental field studies based on three distinct decision-making courses and two control groups, we analyze longitudinal data on 1,013 decision makers/analysts with different levels of experience. The results reveal positive training effects on proactive cognitive skills and decision satisfaction, but we find no effect on proactive personality traits and mostly non-significant interactions between training and experience. These results imply the practical relevance of decision training as a means to promote effective decision making even by more experienced decision makers.
The findings presented here may be helpful for operations research scholars who advocate for specific instruction concerning proactive cognitive skills in courses dedicated to decision quality and/or decision theory and also for increasing, in such courses, participants’ proactive decision making and decision satisfaction. Our results should also promote more positive decision outcomes.
In order to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies face numerous strategic decisions of utmost importance for their future. Being aware of one's objectives is a prerequisite for sound decision making. However, decision and policy makers are often not aware of their objectives when facing important decisions in “normal” times. In addition, specific objectives have to be identified in times of crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic. In this paper, we provide guidelines for managers that illustrate (i) how to identify company objectives, (ii) how to align them within their supply chains and with governmental objectives of policy makers and (iii) how to adjust objectives during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we suggest comprehensive sets of relevant objectives and propose an iterative process to define, align and adjust objectives. The study may help practitioners from business and public administration when making decisions and policies. Researchers may be inspired by the outlined viewpoints on decision-making processes and the addressed perspectives for future research.
