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Question: Discuss About The Individual Decision In Project Management? Answer: Introduction Decision making is a process or method of making crucial and major decisions regarding any project or any activity (Hbr.org 2017). In an organization individuals as well as groups can take decisions through various processes. Both of these decision making processes have their own advantages as well as limitations. The individuals and groups in the organization have a great influence on the decision making process in managing projects. This report discusses about the different types of strategies that can be used for decision making. It also points out the success and failure of the various types of strategies that can be used in an organization. This report also gives a brief idea on how to improve the contribution of the people in managing projects. Importance of Effective Decision Making The business environment is extremely complex and there are several challenges. In order to get a successful project outcome proper decision must be taken. These decisions can be influenced by group or individuals. A business gets success and generates high revenue when correct decisions are taken (Sloanreview.mit.edu 2017). A wrong decision can affect the growth and development of business. It can even shut down a business. Decision making can either be programmed or non-programmed. Programmed decision making uses certain procedures and flowcharts. Non-programmed decision making requires the use of creativity and new ideas. Decision Making Strategies In order to make correct decisions, some general strategies can be implemented by the organizations. Optimization is a strategy that suggests the organization to select the best option among all the available options. Another strategy suggests the organization to select the first available satisfactory option rather than searching for the best (Sloanreview.mit.edu 2017). The optimist decision making strategy suggests the organization to select the option that gives maximum profit. This strategy can be used when the organization can tolerate and bear the failure. There is another strategy called pessimist decision making where the worst outcome is selected with the maximum outcome. This strategy can be used when the organization will incur huge loss due to failure. Different Models of Strategic Decision Making Classical Model: This model follows sequential steps like assessing situations, gathering facts, identifying alternatives, establishing decision criteria and selecting the best alternative (Beach and Lipshitz 2017). Reason for success: This strategy is easy to understand and follows the concept of rationality. Managers feel comfortable by using this model and make correct decisions. Reason for failure: It does not reflect the real strategic situations. It is based on the assumptions of casual links. It also ignores the intuition and political aspects of the decision making. All these factors can be responsible for the failure of this strategy. Military Model: This is a variant of the classical model. Here the goals are set, alternatives are developed and compared followed by choosing the best alternative and implementing the decisions. Reason for success: This model is iterative and it is not necessary to follow a given sequential procedure. This helps the decision maker to move back to a previous stage in order to make correct decisions. This process considers the goals of the organization in making decisions. Reason for failure: This type of strategy or model is not perfect for an ambiguous situation. It does not have the ability to detect critical patterns. It can simply analyze and process data. Mintzbergs Model: This model is mostly used by the organizations in order to make decisions. It has three main phases like identification of problems, development of alternatives and selection of one alternative. This model does not look at the concept of decision making as a procedure for selecting the best among the alternatives. It simply views this as a commitment to a certain action. Reason for success: This model gives importance to communication process and decision control process. It also gives suggestions regarding important patterns that can be used in the strategic decision making process. This model gets its success because it pays attention to many important aspects of decision making. Reason for failure: This type of model for strategic decision making purpose cannot be easily grasped by the people of the organization. This model does not present a proper procedural guidance for making decisions. Individual Decision Making Managers or leaders in a firm can take decisions based on their own intuitions. In this type of process the experience of the individual plays a major role. The creativity of the individuals also influence in making innovative and correct decisions (Ahmed and Omotunde 2012). The organization can motivate their employees in decision making by certain methods like brainstorming sessions. The individual decision making leads to success where there is proper synchronization between the creativity and needs of the individual and the firm. The leaders of the firm will be able to take correct decisions if they have experience and ethical morals and values (Ejimabo 2015). They must also have a certain level of education for understanding the situation and making correct decision. Certain disadvantages of this form of decision making are that the other employees of the organization will not get motivated and it will affect their creativity and productivity. The employees will not feel a part of the organization. This issue can be resolved by encouraging participation in decision making process. Group Decision Making Different techniques can be used in the process of group decision making. Brainstorming technique helps to generate several ideas from different participants. In the Delphi technique the ideas are taken from various experts (Hwang and Lin 2012). In the devils advocacy technique one individual only criticizes the ideas of other in order to find out potential issues. In the dialectical inquiry methods there are two debating groups involved. The advantage of this process is that it generates creative ideas from various employees. It also helps to motivate and retain greater number of employees because this process makes them feel a part of the organization and improves their productivity (Saaty and Peniwati 2013). There are certain limitations like consumption of more time and cultural barriers. Participation in the Decision Making Process The employees should be encouraged to participate in decision making as this will improve their creativity as well as productivity. The satisfaction level of the employees will increase (Zionts 2012). The organization must have a participative and supportive culture in order to encourage employees to participate in decision making. There will be greater understanding of any problem if more people are involved in making decisions. This will help the organization to generate more revenue and develop. Conclusion This report concludes that every organization will benefit from the participation of the individuals and groups in decision making process. Various general strategies of decision making process and decision making models are discussed in this report. This report gives a brief idea of individual and group decision making process. It suggests that participative decision making helps to improve the productivity of the employees and develop the organization. References Ahmed, M.T. and Omotunde, H., 2012. Theories and strategies of good decision making.International Journal of Scientific Technology Research,1(10), pp.51-54. Beach, L.R. and Lipshitz, R., 2017. Why classical decision theory is an inappropriate standard for evaluating and aiding most human decision making.Decision Making in Aviation, p.85. Ejimabo, N.O., 2015. The Influence of Decision Making in Organizational Leadership and Management Activities.Journal of Entrepreneurship Organization Management. Hbr.org. 2017.A Brief History of Decision Making. [online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2006/01/a-brief-history-of-decision-making [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017]. Hwang, C.L. and Lin, M.J., 2012.Group decision making under multiple criteria: methods and applications(Vol. 281). Springer Science Business Media. Saaty, T.L. and Peniwati, K., 2013.Group decision making: drawing out and reconciling differences. RWS publications. Sloanreview.mit.edu. 2017.Strategy as Strategic Decision Making. [online] MIT Sloan Management Review. Available at: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/strategy-as-strategic-decision-making/ [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017]. Zionts, S., 2012, December. MULTIPLE CRTTERTA DECISION MAKING. InMultiple Criteria Decision Making Theory and Application: Proceedings of the Third Conference Hagen/Knigswinter, West Germany, August 2024, 1979(Vol. 177, p. 150). Springer Science Business Media.