My reflection blog this week is to review the power of every day reasoning in multistage decision-making. In the course reading material it discusses how researchers solve multistage problems through the application for formulas to provide the most significant opportunity of success. My blog will review my own decision making process and reflect on the process compared to those outlined in the material. I will reflect on impacts on forward planning and possible decision analysis to predict future impact of today’s decision.

            The setting for my blog decision making is based around my role as a program planner for a major aerospace company that provide software design and redesign, where the customer is our government acquisition team. In this role I have very little decision making in overall design of the software, itself. My decision make comes into fruition when we use the tools to plan the work and creation of metrics to measure project performance.  Myopia is very relevant in project planning as each person has his or her own needs to completing the project. Myopic decision-making is apparent when each stakeholder is only looking out for their small scale of work scope verses how they are logically linked and impact to other stakeholders within the schedule.  This disadvantage of this type of decision-making in project planning is the inability to effectively schedule work. Schedule effectiveness measurement is a formula based metric defined by our customer. This measurement is measure on actual start and finish dates that the team determine each month, looking forward.  The disadvantage of this metric is its measured exactly on a precise date. The measurement is a monthly analysis, however if a tasks slips one day, but is in the same accounting month, it still considered a miss or a failed effort.

            In the course reading it stated the “Wharton Behavior Laboratory has found that with people who have had statistical training, they still underestimate the value of future options” (p47). As a planner with an in-depth background in logistical analysis, I would agree that it is hard to estimate the future of a project. I somewhat veered off to ask myself this question while I was reading the material to determine why is it so hard to make a decision based on what I know today in the project.  I would eagerly identify that I based my decisions on decision in the past, whether they were failures or successes. My decision-making is centered on a great amount of assumptions and perceptions that surround not only the project itself but also the various variables into the equation. The biggest variable is the direct customer who can make changes during the lifecycle of the project by adding new scope or deciding to remove scope that they felt was no longer necessary. The variables can be the performance of the labor force not meeting the plan work in the time it was determined It would be done. The odd part of the planned project is the scope was planned on some type of past effort and sometimes a guess, due to the unknowns associated with the work. (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001)

            My decision-making style is variable based on the situation, as I am a perfectionist who does not like to make bad decisions, which sometimes is not away the best way to go about things. When it comes to work projects my decision-making is a bit more open and teamwork approach. I tend to use my ability to rely on past failures to prevent future ones. But at the same time I am a person who lives on the idea of trial and error, as not every decision is clear-cut with a positive results, and you really don’t know until you try. An example of trial and error is when I teach Microsoft (MS) Excel courses at work, and now considered the subject matter expert. The key is that I don’t know everything in MS, ad sometimes its trial and error to get to the end result. I also use the Google search engine when I do not know the answer. The ability to make that decision is using past decision to search for the answer, tends to work out more efficient for me in the end.

            To reflect on impacts of my decision-making, I feel my style is based on learning and listening to others who make decisions, and collegiate level learning where I tend to do an ample amount of self-reflection learning. An example of difference is with my spouse as we work at the same company with different decision-making styles. My husband who is a senior manager believes in fixing the problem and asking questions later. I am the opposite where I prefer ask the questions and find the root cause and then take action. Neither of the two examples is wrong, just very different. So I asked myself why are we different and it has to do with his decisions effect safety of people and aircraft and mine has do within the business office. The overall difference is based on the type of work that is done and sometimes you have to have the different decision-making styles in a work setting to reach optimization. Both roles require equation statistics to make decisions, however one is critical to safety of life and equipment, and the other could be life of a program.

            Overall, decision making in my work area does have an impact on future decisions for not only the program but also the company. The decisions I make in using our tools, working with other programs, and interaction with my overall customer will have an impact on future programs for the company. I am very cognizant of how I interact with all people, as I don’t want the perception that I am a non team player who is argumentative or incompetent.  I am very confident in my skills and biased at time, as I know what I am doing is efficient and appropriate to the program. I am somewhat shy in decision-making as I feel like I am still learning, watching, and asking for feedback on how I handled things.  I am not scared to make decisions but they are very variable based on the situation.

Reference: 

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H. C., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. Hoboken, New Jersey, USA: John Wiley & Sons.