Week 2
“PM, DM and Decision
Making in Projects”
Dr Ramesh Vahidi r.vahidi@soton.ac.uk
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Southampton Business School
10 Feb 22
Review: Week 1
DM is a Multidisciplinary
Area
Aspects of DM in
Projects
Introduction to Module
Introduction to Decision
Making • Decision Science
•Economics
•Public Policy
•Psychology
•Social Psychology
•Law: Adjudication
•Neuroscience
•Philosophy
A General
Classification of Decisions
Intertwined with our lives
Significance in PM
•Conceptual •Decision makers •Decision Elements •Decision Methods & Processes •Decision Context
Aims of Week 2
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“To provide you with further essential conceptual
backgrounds and some practical examples for
analysing decisions in the context of ‘projects’.”
Learning Outcomes of Week 2
By actively attending the sessions and following up with further background studies
you are expected to develop:
The ability to identify decisions in case study projects.
The ability to breakdown a decision to its main components for analysis.
Discuss when decisions are made in projects and their significance.
Define approaches to decision studies and classify project decisions.
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Decision Analysis & Synthesis
• Observing
• Reflecting
• Learning
• Unlearning
• Improving
• Creating
Concepts of Analysis & Synthesis in General
Synthesis: “the act of combining separate ideas, beliefs, styles, etc.; a mixture or combination of ideas, beliefs, styles, etc.”
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Analysis: “to examine the nature or structure of something, especially by separating it into its parts, in order to understand or explain it”
(Oxford Dictionary, nd)
Situation: Messy, complex, uncertain, challenging, specially for the first time!
Basic ANALYSIS of a Decision: Identifying Decision Components
Ask Yourself
• What did I ultimately want to achieve?
• What courses of action I could/could not take?
• What result(s) did I get by making the decision?
• Why couldn’t I choose whatever I wished for?
• Who else was involved in?
What it means
• This was your GOAL (Objective, Purpose, Aim)
• These were your OPTIONs (Choices, Alternatives).
• These were the OUTCOMEs.
• These were the LIMITATIONS (Constraints).
• These could have been DECISION MAKERS [RV: or Influencers].
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Your critical decision: Studying an MSc!
Start/End Points of Decisions: A Long Process or an Immediate Action?
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Minor Decision
Major Decision
Decision Chain – Interdependency
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“General Approaches to DM”
“Common Approaches to DM Studies
in PM”
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Southampton Business School
Info on Accessing Highfield Campus
• Describing and showing the Campus and its surroundings for your knowledge
• Showing different ways you could come to the campus, their time, means, etc. and you could ‘choose’ the option that works best for you each time you come to campus
• How exactly you should access the campus (via route for cycling)
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Variety of Approaches to DM in the Literature
Theories, studies and methods of making decisions could
take different forms:
• Descriptive
• Normative
• Prescriptive
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Sources: (Bell, Raiffa and Tversky, 1988; Kleindorfer, Kunreuther and Schoemaker, 1993; Virine and Trumper, 2008; Teale, et al., 2003; Frame, 2012)
Theories of and Studies in DM Descriptive
• Descriptive theories try to describe:
• How decisions are made by people
• Why they make them in the way they do
• Example of the fields: behavioural, psychological, sociological, organizational
• Assessment criteria: empirical validity (potential issues: DM at exec level based on studying school pupils!)
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Theories of and Studies in DM Normative
• Normative theories suggest: How the decisions should be made
• Perception: the “decision-makers possess perfect knowledge, know all available options and can predict all possible outcomes” (Teale, et al., 2003, p.268)
• Deal with: “how idealized, rational, super-intelligent people should think and should act” (Bell, Raiffa and Tversky, 1988, p.16)
• Examples of the fields: mathematical and statistical formulations of Operations Research (OR)
• Assessment criteria: accuracy of the methods based on the applied theories
* Programmed Decisions would benefit more!
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Theories of and Studies in DM Prescriptive
• Prescriptive* theories/studies: How can people make better decisions in ‘complex’, ‘real life situations’ with ‘constraints’:
– Try to ‘improve’ DM by ‘helping’ and ‘training’ decision makers in making ‘better’ decisions
– Perception: decision makers are real people trying to make ‘better’ decisions [“… as opposed to imaginary, idealized, super-rational people without psyches …” (Bell, Raiffa and Tversky, 1988, p.9)]
• Examples of the fields: organizational behaviour, planning, strategy, team theory, economics and political science.
• Assessment criteria: ‘pragmatic value’ of theories/studies or their capability in assisting people with making better decisions.
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*As Bell, Raiffa and Tversky (1988, p.9) define! (not all the other textbooks/papers that use this term)
“General Approaches to DM”
“Decisions in Projects: where in PLC,
classification, impact”
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Southampton Business School
When do we need to make decisions in projects?
Definition
E.g.: Why, what;
