Decision Making Process
Decision Making Process
Introduction
Decision making process can be tedious and involving sometimes, therefore, parties seeking solutions should be very cautious on the course they purse. In most decision making scenarios, the management must identify and comprehend challenges facing the organization. This will enable the management to frame decision to pursue (Luecke, 2006). The management will then continue to indentify the objectives in which the firm wishes to achieve through the decision. Objectives are followed by alternatives which will help in obtaining solutions for the underlying problem. After weighing the alternatives, the management should consider the consequences of the alternative chosen and also how the decision affects the shareholders of the firm. To conclude the decision making process, the firm will implement the alternative and continue with monitoring and evaluation.
In light of what is delineated above, this paper seeks to create business decision for Allied Software Corporation’s Tysons Corner. Allied Software Corporation’s Tysons Corner is faced with several challenges which are hampering its productivity and turnover. As discovered in the case study, the firm lacks adequate resources which would otherwise improve the efficiency of the firm, employee welfare and motivation, task allocation ( task allocated to the department should have content follow), hardware service timing, and employee training and involvement (Study Guides and Strategies, n.d.).
The above discussed challenges have hampered the firm the productivity and smooth running of operations in Allied Software Corporation’s Tysons Corner, thus, causing the personnel struggle to meet the tight deadlines. In order, to achieve the objectives of the paper we will adopt the decision matrix in analyzing the available alternatives to alienate the alternatives that would have adverse effects to the firm in relation to all the stakeholders involved.
The objectives that the decision making process aim to achieve includes, but is not limited to, improving efficiency, increasing the company productivity and turnover, improving the welfare and motivation of employees (Luecke, 2006).
In order to achieve the objectives the firm has the following alternatives:
- Alternative 1: To purchase new hardware (computers) while engaging all the employees of the organization to educational training.
- Alternative 2: To purchase new hardware (computers) and train the old members of the department only.
- Alternative 3: To hire new tech altogether.
- Alternative 4: The organization can choose to ignore the challenges being faced by the employees.
The company can adopt any of the alternatives listed above; however, the management considers other factors and constrains in order to be able to come up with the best alternative that would help the organization achieve its goal.
Some factors that the firm has to consider are the resources availability, the motivation of resources, capacities of the employees, and hardware service time and cost.
Decision matrix
| Alternative | Cost | Hardware servicing and cost | Employees motivation | Total |
| Alternative 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 14 |
| Alternative 2 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 11 |
| Alternative 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
| Alternative 4 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
In the above decision matrix, alternatives are rated according to the factors listed above. A Zero rate means the alternative scores poor in correlation to the factor, while a five rate means the alternatives score very high in correlation to the factor in question.
Alternative 3 is likely to face resistance from employees both the old members and the new employees of firms. Various research have shown that employees to be resistance to changes, especially changes pertaining to technology advancement. Employees fear that if there is a new technology being adopted in the organization they will either lose their jobs or be rendered redundant by the organization thus de-motivating the employees from embracing the new technology (Stating Objectives n.p)
In additional, adoption of a new technology would result to intensive training of the employees. This would result to working hours being dedicated towards training thus interfering with smooth running of the organization. This would lower the firm productivity, since most manpower resources during the training would be non productive (Luecke, 2006). The company might also take long time before stabilizing and overcoming the challenges of changing systems. This would mean that the organization would miss out on programs with short deadlines, thus reducing the firm turnover (Axelrod, 2008).
In the case of alternative 1, if the firm purchase new hardware but opt to carry out education training only for members of firms, this would result into the firm saving, however, the older members of the would feel de-motivated since this could be viewed as discrimination among employees which could the team spirit of the department thus resulting to lower productivity from the older members of the firm.
Alternative 4, would be adverse to the firm since it will not only de-motivated but could also occasion labor turnover. Employees usually want to see that, the challenges they have raised have be acted upon by the management, and therefore, failure to address them could only demoralize them (Luecke, 2006).
Based on the above discussion and the decision matrix formulated above the firm should an adopt an alternative that would increase the firm productivity and employees morale in order to increase the firm overall turnover.
Summary
In order to improve the operations of the firm, Alex needs to purchase the tools that would enable the employees perform their duties efficiently without having to work so hard when the deadline is in the offing. The hardware service policy is currently up to 48 hours; therefore, this indicates there is high probability that the idle time on the firm is very high. This is a clear indication of fund wastage in the organization. Adoption of the first alternative would reduce the hardware service policy to three hours; this reduces idle time in the organization, thus enhancing the organization productivity.
Although purchase of new computers is a significant financial commitment, the organization will greatly benefit from the new computers (Axelrod, 2008). Benefits will not only include improved working conditions and time delivery of clients products also tax benefits to the organization in terms depreciation charged per year.
If alternative 1 is adopted, then the organization would encourage all employees in adopting a change and eliminate the risk of employees’ discrimination. This will ensure suggestions raised by the employee attract equal attention and also encourage coexisting of employees. This would lead to increased motivation, thus increasing the firm overall productivity and turn over (Axelrod, 2008).
In to order ensure that the organization business decision are being implemented, Alex should ensure that task allocated to the department have content flow to minimize on the time spent on specific task. In addition, Alex should ensure that the weekly reviews to avoid duplication of task amongst the members of the department.
References
Axelrod, A. (2008). RISK, the decision matrix: Strategies that win. New York: Sterling.
Decision Matrix Analysis: Making a Decision by Weighing Up Different Factors. (n.d.). Retrieved April 9, 2015, from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_03.htm
Developing and Weighing Alternatives: http://www.studygs.net/problem/problemsolvingv2.htm
Decision Trees: http://www.mindtools.com/dectree.html
Framing Bias: http://www.maxwideman.com/guests/portfolio/framing.htm
Framing a Decision: http://www.csun.edu/~hfmgt001/frameD.htm
How do Stakeholders Affect Your Decision Making:
http://www.aquilent.com/blog/2011/09/how-do-your-stakeholders-affect-your-decision-making/
Structured Decision Making “Implement and Monitor” :
Luecke, R. (2006). Decision making 5 steps to better results. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.
Stating Objectives. (2013, March 5). Retrieved April 9, 2015, from http://www.structureddecisionmaking.org/steps/objectives/objectives2/
Structured Decision Making “Objectives”:
Structured Decision Making “Brainstorming”:
Structured Decision Making “Stating Objectives”:
Structured Decision Making “Seperating Means from Ends” :
Structured Decision Making “Testing Objectives” :
Structured Decision Making “The Consequence Table” :
Study Guides and Strategies. (n.d.). Retrieved April 9, 2015, from http://www.studygs.net/problem/problemsolvingv2.htm
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