DECISION MAKING IN BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

Problem solving and decision-making are important skills for business and life. Problem-solving often involves decision-making, and decision-making is especially important for management and leadership. There are processes and techniques to improve decision-making and the quality of decisions. Decision-making is more natural to certain personalities, so these people should focus more on improving the quality of their decisions. People that are less natural decision-makers are often able to make quality assessments, but then need to be more decisive in acting upon the assessments made. Problem-solving and decision-making are closely linked, and each requires creativity in identifying and developing options, for which the brainstorming technique is particularly useful. See also the free SWOT analysis template and examples, and PEST analysis template, which help decision-making and problem-solving. SWOT analysis helps assess the strength of a company, a business proposition or idea; PEST analysis helps to assess the potential and suitability of a market. Good decision-making requires a mixture of skills: creative development and identification of options, clarity of judgement, firmness of decision, and effective implementation. For group problem-solving and decision-making, or when a consensus is required, workshops help, within which you can incorporate these tools and process as appropriate. Here are some useful methods for effective decision-making and problem-solving: First a simple step-by-step process for effective decision-making and problem-solving.

Brainstorming Technique

Brainstorming with a group of people is a powerful technique. Brainstorming creates new ideas, solves problems, motivates and develops teams. Brainstorming motivates because it involves members of a team in bigger management issues, and it gets a team working together. However, brainstorming is not simply a random activity. Brainstorming needs to be structured and it follows brainstorming rules. The brainstorming process is described below, for which you will need a flip-chart or alternative. This is crucial as Brainstorming needs to involve the team, which means that everyone must be able to see what's happening. Brainstorming places a significant burden on the facilitator to manage the process, people's involvement and sensitivities, and then to manage the follow up actions. Use Brainstorming well and you will see excellent results in improving the organization, performance, and developing the team.

SWOT
The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organizations. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
SWOT Analysis, is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s {using data from Fortune 500 companies}.

Use of SWOT Analysis

The usefulness of SWOT analysis is not limited to profit-seeking organizations. SWOT analysis may be used in any decision-making situation when a desired end-state (objective) has been defined. Examples include: non-profit organizations, governmental units, and individuals. SWOT analysis may also be used in pre-crisis planning and preventive crisis management.

Corporate planning

As part of the development of strategies and plans to enable the organization to achieve its objectives, then that organization will use a systematic/rigorous process known as corporate planning. SWOT alongside PEST/PESTLE can be used as a basis for the analysis of business and environmental factors

PEST analysis

PEST analysis stands for "Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis" and describes a framework of macroenvironmental factors used in environmental scanning. It is a part of the external analysis when doing market research and gives a certain overview of the different macroenvironmental factors that the company has to take into consideration. It is a useful strategic tool for understanding market growth or decline, business position, potential and direction for operations.
It is also referred to as the STEP, STEEP, PESTEL, PESTLE or LEPEST (or Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Legal, Environmental). Recently it was even further extended to STEEPLE and STEEPLED, including education and demographics.

The PEST factors combined with external microenvironmental factors can be classified as opportunities and threats in a SWOT analysis. PEST/PESTLE alongside SWOT and SLEPT can be used as a basis for the analysis of business and environmental factors.

WORKSHOPS

Workshops combine training, development, team-building, communications, motivation and planning. Participation and involvement of staff increases the sense of ownership and empowerment, and facilitates the development of organisations and individuals. Workshops are effective in managing change and achieving improvement, and particularly the creation of initiatives, plans, process and actions to achieve particular business and organisational aims. Workshops are also great for breaking down barriers, improving communications inside and outside of departments, and integrating staff after acquisition or merger. Workshops are particularly effective for (CRM) customer relationship management development. The best and most constructive motivational team-building format is a workshop, or better still series of workshops, focusing on the people's key priorities and personal responsibilities/interest areas, which hopefully will strongly overlap with business and departmental aims too. Workshops can be integrated within regular monthly team meetings - an amazing amount of motivation progress and productivity can be accomplished with just a 90 mins workshop per month. Workshop facilitation by a team leader or manager develops leadership, and workshops achieve strong focus on business aims among team members. Workshops are very effective for training too - workshops encourage buy-in and involvement more than conventional training courses because they are necessarily participative, and the content and output are created by the delegates. Also, the relationship between workshop facilitator or workshop presenter and delegates is participative, whereas a 'trainer' is often perceived as detached, and the training material 'not invented here'.

Reference
Armstrong. M. A handbook of Human Resource Management Practice www.businessballs.com website