Decision Making Strategies
For this week’s discussion you required to apply the BADIR process (Business question, Analysis plan, Data collection, Insights, and Recommendation) to a personal or professional problem you are currently facing or something you want to improve. You must go through each of the five steps of the BADIR process while attempting to solve your problem. You will share your experience going through this process in your response. You may review the BADIR process in Chapter 4 of Behind Every Good Decision.
Questions your response should answer are provided below.
For the Business question step you should answer questions to identify intent and questions to understand business considerations (even if it is not a business problem). From answering these questions, you should be able to narrow the problem or goal down to a one or two questions as in the example of pp. 57-58.
Intent
- What is it and why am I interested?
- Where, when, and why (potentially) is it taking place, and who is affected?
Business considerations
- What decisions need to be taken and by when?
- Who is the decision maker, who will take action, and what actions would be taken?
For the Analysis plan step you should answer questions related to your analysis goals, methodology, data specification, and analysis plan steps. You do not have to use any of the seven methodologies in the book. For example, you may use a point system or pros and cons list as described in section 3 of the GCF tutorial. You may even use your own method.
Analysis goals: What needs to be determined to make the decision?
Methodology: What methods will I use to make those determinations?
Data specification: What variables do I need to measure and how will they be measured?
Analysis plan: How will the data be collected/produced, by whom will it be collected, and by when?
For the Data Collection step, simply collect the data you require.
For the Insights step, perform the analysis described by your methodology to identify patterns between the variables and describe how strongly those variables are related to the problem or goal.
For the Recommendation step, propose what you believe should be done to solve the problem based on your insight. Were you able to successfully solve the problem in time for this discussion? How was the outcome?
You do not need to overthink this assignment or tackle an especially challenging problem. You can apply this analysis to even the simplest of problems. The best approach is simply to identify a problem you need to solve and begin working through the process step-by-step. This problem could be related to your work or personal life. Even if you think the problem is too simple and your answers will be silly, that is fine. The important thing is for you to consciously practice this process and communicate your experiences.