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Greetings: Profssor Frank Yates at the Ross School of Business
(Michigan Business School) studies decision-making and has written
several articles and a book on decision-making. His research and
writing are excellent and very accessible to the practitioner. You can
learn more about his ideas at the following websites:

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/directory/profiles/faculty/?unique
name=jfyates : Frank's U of M faculty profile and one of his
practioner-focused articles

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0787956260/qid=1102341492/
sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/104-4449767-0953533?v=glance&s=books&n=50
7846: A description of one of his books (he has at least 3 to my
knowledge) on Amazon.com. This book is targeted toward the practioner.


I hope this is helpful.

Best,
Paula Caproni
Ross School of Business

-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Fred Nickols
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 8:11 AM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Who Else Comes to Mind


Whenever someone says decision or decision-making to me, several names
comes to mind right away: Drucker, Mintzberg, Vroom (& Yetton), Thomas
Saaty, Kepner & Tregoe.

Who else comes to mind?

Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT
Senior Consultant
Distance Consulting
"Assistance at A Distance"
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us

Thanks for the links, Paula.

I clicked on the first one and found another there. It took me to a piece
on Decision Management titled "A Game Plan to Achieve Organizational Grand
Slams." The first two paragraphs read as follows:

"A tennis player's forehand looks like a single fluid movement, but
it's a series of actions. She grips the racket, gets in position, watches
her opponent's approaching shot, pivots her shoulders and hips, turns her
foot, transfers her weight, keeps her forearm parallel to the ground, holds
the racket head at a precise angle, draws back the racket, steps forward,
shifts her weight again, swings the racket forward, keeps her arm straight
and her wrist firm, contacts the ball and follows through with a long
sweeping motion.

Decisions are made the same way. Each one is the last step in a
series of actions. However, many decision makers, like tennis players, are
unaware of these steps as they occur. And a mistake or miscalculation at any
point in the process can send a decision sailing out of bounds."

Frankly, I think I'm of a different persuasion than Professor Yates
regarding the tennis player's forehand. I think it is indeed a "single,
fluid movement." It seems to me that the good professor superimposes his
analytical decomposition of the tennis player's behavior onto that behavior
and thus identifies a series of actions or steps that reflect his analysis
more than they do the tennis player's actual behavior.

Nevertheless, I'm hopeful that Professor Yates' work will add to my stock of
knowledge about decisions and decision making so I'll continue checking out
what he has to say.

Thanks again for the links and for bringing Yates to my attention.

Regards,

Fred Nickols
nickols@att.net


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Management Education and Development Discussion [mailto:MG-ED-
> DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Caproni, Paula
> Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 9:02 AM
> To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
> Subject: Re: Who Else Comes to Mind for Decision Research
>
> Greetings: Profssor Frank Yates at the Ross School of Business
> (Michigan Business School) studies decision-making and has written
> several articles and a book on decision-making. His research and
> writing are excellent and very accessible to the practitioner. You can
> learn more about his ideas at the following websites:
>
> http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/directory/profiles/faculty/?unique
> name=jfyates : Frank's U of M faculty profile and one of his
> practioner-focused articles
>
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0787956260/qid=1102341492/
> sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/104-4449767-0953533?v=glance&s=books&n=50
> 7846: A description of one of his books (he has at least 3 to my
> knowledge) on Amazon.com. This book is targeted toward the practioner.
>
>
> I hope this is helpful.
>
> Best,
> Paula Caproni
> Ross School of Business

Re Yates - I agree with your doubts about the metaphor, butI'm also
struggling with the notion of a "decision sailing out of bounds". What can
the words mean?

Steven

Colleagues,

When Erwin Raush brought up decision making at this time last year, I argued
that the real issue was the question that brought up the decision.

In the athlete metaphor, the final stroke would seem to be the "decision,"
and the various mental and body adjustments would be the "decision process."

A perfect process with an optimal decision is worthless if the wrong
question has been asked. The real work in any sport is the ongoing practice
and development of instinctive moves. In decision making, the practice must
be in discovery of the right questions and development of knowledge and
experience that makes final decision making swift and accurate.

Best,

Gary

----------------------------
Innovation Catalyst
Process Accelerator
Gary Lundquist
President - Market Engineering International
www.Market-Engineering.com
Chair - The Colorado Innovation Summit
www.InnovationSummit.com
303-840-9929 GaryL@Market-Engineering.com

Yes, Prof. Yates did decompose the tennis player down pretty fine, but
indeed each little piece does represent a 'decision' for a specific
action from alternatives at the muscular level. Proof? Witness the
non-expert tennis player who gets some of the actions correct, but not
quite all of them.

I believe that these 'minute' but critical decisions/actions are made in
the case of the knowledgeable tennis player by the medulla oblongata -
the part of the brain responsible for individual muscle action, and that
keeps us balanced & vertical (most of the time :). 'Thinking' processes
are simply too slow to handle all the tiny little decisions necessary to
swipe the tennis ball so it stays in bounds and where it is desired
(desired by the cognitive thinking process?)

We do not think our way through balancing & riding a bicycle - we
practice and skin knees until we teach the medulla oblongata to do it.

Now, Fred wants to look at decisions and decision making, I believe.
Decisions that have a bit more import than riding a bike, no doubt.
Perhaps he (and Prof. Yates) could narrow the range of inquiry to those
decisions that require cognitive thinking processes.

Or perhaps we could have students work business simulations until their
medulla oblongatas learned how to decide desirable actions. Hmmm... How
many different situations would those simulations need to consider?

Cheers,
Jay

Fred Nickols wrote:

>Thanks for the links, Paula.
>
>I clicked on the first one and found another there. It took me to a piece
>on Decision Management titled "A Game Plan to Achieve Organizational Grand
>Slams." The first two paragraphs read as follows:
>
> "A tennis player's forehand looks like a single fluid movement, but
>it's a series of actions. She grips the racket, gets in position, watches
>her opponent's approaching shot, pivots her shoulders and hips, turns her
>foot, transfers her weight, keeps her forearm parallel to the ground, holds
>the racket head at a precise angle, draws back the racket, steps forward,
>shifts her weight again, swings the racket forward, keeps her arm straight
>and her wrist firm, contacts the ball and follows through with a long
>sweeping motion.
>
> Decisions are made the same way. Each one is the last step in a
>series of actions. However, many decision makers, like tennis players, are
>unaware of these steps as they occur. And a mistake or miscalculation at any
>point in the process can send a decision sailing out of bounds."
>
>Frankly, I think I'm of a different persuasion than Professor Yates
>regarding the tennis player's forehand. I think it is indeed a "single,
>fluid movement." It seems to me that the good professor superimposes his
>analytical decomposition of the tennis player's behavior onto that behavior
>and thus identifies a series of actions or steps that reflect his analysis
>more than they do the tennis player's actual behavior.
>
>Nevertheless, I'm hopeful that Professor Yates' work will add to my stock of
>knowledge about decisions and decision making so I'll continue checking out
>what he has to say.
>
>Thanks again for the links and for bringing Yates to my attention.
>
>Regards,
>
>Fred Nickols
>nickols@att.net
>
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Management Education and Development Discussion [mailto:MG-ED-
>>DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Caproni, Paula
>>Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 9:02 AM
>>To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
>>Subject: Re: Who Else Comes to Mind for Decision Research
>>
>>Greetings: Profssor Frank Yates at the Ross School of Business
>>(Michigan Business School) studies decision-making and has written
>>several articles and a book on decision-making. His research and
>>writing are excellent and very accessible to the practitioner. You can
>>learn more about his ideas at the following websites:
>>
>>http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/directory/profiles/faculty/?unique
>>name=jfyates : Frank's U of M faculty profile and one of his
>>practioner-focused articles
>>
>>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0787956260/qid=1102341492/
>>sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/104-4449767-0953533?v=glance&s=books&n=50
>>7846: A description of one of his books (he has at least 3 to my
>>knowledge) on Amazon.com. This book is targeted toward the practioner.
>>
>>
>>I hope this is helpful.
>>
>>Best,
>>Paula Caproni
>>Ross School of Business
>>
>>
>
>
>
>

--
Jay Warner
Principal Scientist
Warner Consulting, Inc.
4444 North Green Bay Road
Racine, WI 53404-1216
USA

Ph: (262) 634-9100
FAX: (262) 681-1133
email: quality@a2q.com
web: http://www.a2q.com

The A2Q Method (tm) -- What do you want to improve today?

Jay Warner writes:

> Yes, Prof. Yates did decompose the tennis player down pretty fine, but
> indeed each little piece does represent a 'decision' for a specific
> action from alternatives at the muscular level. Proof? Witness the
> non-expert tennis player who gets some of the actions correct, but not
> quite all of them.
>
> I believe that these 'minute' but critical decisions/actions are made in
> the case of the knowledgeable tennis player by the medulla oblongata -
> the part of the brain responsible for individual muscle action, and that
> keeps us balanced & vertical (most of the time :). 'Thinking' processes
> are simply too slow to handle all the tiny little decisions necessary to
> swipe the tennis ball so it stays in bounds and where it is desired
> (desired by the cognitive thinking process?)

Ordinarily, I treat anything Jay says with considerable gravity. In this
case, I won't be disrespectful of Jay but I will say that I don't buy the
"proof" offered above - nor do I buy the "plans and programs" view of
behavior behind it. The 'proof' is an inference or a hypothesis and it is
certainly Jay's conclusion or belief but it is not 'proof' - at least not
proof I would accept.

For "desired" in the second paragraph above I would substitute "intended"
because I do believe that tennis players and other athletes do indeed
formulate intentions, short-term and long-term. I just don't think they
engage in a lot of conscious deliberations in the heat of action; instead, I
think their behavior is much better accounted for by the closed-loop,
feedback-governed model that stands at the heart of William T. Powers'
Perceptual Control Theory (PCT). In short, our behavior acts to control our
perceptions and to keep them aligned with our reference conditions (e.g.,
intentions).

Try this little experiment. Go to a table in your house that has at least
four chairs. Set a glass of water somewhere on the table and then take a
sip of water. Set the glass somewhere else on the table and then take a
different seat and take another sip of water. Do this until you've been in
all four seats, placed the glass in four different positions and taken a sip
while sitting in each of the four chairs. I think what you'll find is that
what you control in the course of this experiment are your perceptions of
things like "sitting in different chairs," "taking a sip of water," "placing
the glass in different positions," etc. What you're not doing is engaging
in a whole lot of conscious, deliberate thought, plans and programs
involving reaching, grasping, lifting, sipping, setting down, placing,
standing, walking, sitting, etc. These kinds of descriptors reflect the
observer's viewpoint, not the subject's.


Regards,

Fred Nickols
nickols@att.net

Harrison, E. Frank was interesting reading. Rather than dealing with
decision-making as a whole, he focused on managers. Try these two:
The Managerial Decision-Making Process (latest ed. is 1981)
Policy, Strategy, and Managerial Action

Mike Kiska
Training & O.D. Manager - Administrative Services
Jefferson County Public Library
mkiska@jefferson.lib.co.us

Find us on the Web: http://jefferson.lib.co.us

Good Morning,

I spent years developing a transdisicipline model on decision making, which
borrowed facets of the model from education, learning, mathematics,
psychology, biology, cognition, information science , sense making, etc

I published under two keywords CogKnology and Decision Intelligence.

My research developed a model that mapped decision making from a cognition
process and knowledge facet model. So I mapped the way a person information
behavior from sensory input, memory recall processes, sense making, etc .
The 2nd part was a hyper data style of meta data, that didnt just stay
limited to tacit / explicit but actually more than 15 different measures of
knowledge. I then developed a new style of mathematics to do the modeling,
and to map the knowledge shifts that used a within group / between group
fuzzy logical granuated system of modeling.

Hence, I was able to Map the differences between decision states through a
knowledge matrix in a general relativity model of decision making.

I presented the model a few times, but got told it was two complex and
transdisicipline approaches were almost outlawed, so i just have it sitting
in a box. Anyway, its a different way of modeling decision making, etc

Cheers
Tony



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