Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T12:50:06.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

22 - Building Decision Competency in Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Carl S. Spetzler
Affiliation:
Strategic Decisions Group
Ralph F. Miles Jr.
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology
Detlof von Winterfeldt
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Get access

Summary

ABSTRACT. Decision analysis was introduced about 40 years ago. Since that time the practice of decision consultants, whether internal or external to organizations, has expanded from analytical support in difficult decisions to designing governance and decision systems and transforming enterprise capabilities. Organizations realize a significant positive impact when they develop true decision competency – that is, when high-quality decision making becomes part of their organizational DNA. In this chapter, the author first defines organizational decision competency and then describes how to achieve this competency. He describes two cases of two large corporations that have achieved a high level of decision competency. He concludes with a perspective on the first 40 years of corporate adoption of decision competencies that still has a long way to go.

Background

In the mid-1960s, Ronald Howard and James Matheson formed the Decision Analysis Group at Stanford Research Institute with the vision of creating a “teaching hospital” for decision analysis, a then-emerging discipline. Their goal was to advance the practice of decision analysis and build professional competency in the discipline among SRI's clients. Initially, decision analysis practitioners used a systems engineering approach based on normative decision science to identify the optimal choice among a set of alternatives in the light of real-world uncertainty, dynamics, and complexity. As the discipline evolved, it incorporated various methods from the behavioral decision sciences to deal with biases and to obtain organizational alignment with commitment to effective action.

Type
Chapter
Information
Advances in Decision Analysis
From Foundations to Applications
, pp. 451 - 468
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×