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A BOOK REVIEW ON DECISION

MAKING -5 STEPS TO BETTERRESULTS

-Harvard business essential

Presented by,Neenu Varghese

1020934

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HARVARD BUSINESS ESSENTIALS

Designed to provide comprehensive advice,personal coaching, background information &guidance on the most relevant topics inbusiness.

Carefully crafted to provide practical resourcefor readers with all levels of experience, will

prove especially valuable for the newmanager.

These solution oriented books put reliableanswers at your fingertips.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

5 steps that can dramatically improve yourdecision making skills and avoid commontraps which may lead to bad results.

Managers will learn how to :

Employ proven decision makingtechniques.

Get the right people involved. Reduce risk.

Choose the best alternative.

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STYLE

Descriptive in nature.

Its simple and precise.

Easy to understand.

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CONTENTS:

1. The decision process-5 key steps.

2. The context for success-Setting the stage.

3. The framing challenge-What is the realproblem.

4. Alternatives-The source of superior solution.

5. Evaluate the alternatives-Finding the value of

each opinion.6. Make the decision-Getting to agreement.

7. Uncertainty problem-How to deal withunknown.

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8. Human foibles-How to counter tendencies

that can ambush your decision.

9. Organizational traps-The madness andwisdom of the crowd.

10. Towards a smarter organization-Getting

better at making decisions.

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SUMMARY

1. 5 steps decision process establish a contextfor success, frame the issue properly, generatealternatives, evaluate the alternative & choose

the best alternative.2. It is difficult to make good decisions inorganizations afflicted by factionalism and ahabit of advocacy.

3. How our assumptions ,goals, experienceexpectations can influence, how we frame theproblem & tips for preventing them fromblocking a true perception.

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4. Seeking alternatives, characteristics of goodalternatives, and method of generatingthese alternatives.

5. Tools for evaluating alternatives: Netpresent value, prioritization matrix, a tradeoff table and decision tree. Mentions

computer software to measure alternatives.6. 3 techniques which for moving grouptowards agreement of a decision; catch ball,point counter point, intellectual watch dog.

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7. Tackling the problems of uncertainty-3 stepapproach; identify the uncertainity,determinewhich uncertainties could have the greatest

impact, attempt to reduce key uncertainties.

Also discuss how you can use your intuitions inmaking serious choices clouded in uncertainty.

Other hazards faced by decision makers arebehavior,mentalhabits,anchoring,overconfidence,false analogies& a bias towards evidence thatconfirms one`s own opinions.

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8. Give tips to overcome these hazards and tomake an effective decision.

9. Follows with a discussion of social &organizational habits like group think, socialinfluences etc, that produce the damagingeffect.

10. Explains the things you can do to make yourorganization better at decision making at alllevels. These include training, practice& allthe application of continuous improvement.

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CRITICISM

Situation based examples are lacking.

Repetitive data.

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THANK YOU