Decision Making For Success In An Organization
The success of a group relies on decision making. Organizations make decisions to survive or thrive. Therefore, resources are essential for guiding the course in the right direction. Different members of a group play specific roles while engaging in the decision making. Holding a meeting and brainstorming about particular ideas drives the decision making in a group. However, the final action depends on the leaders of the organization. During the process, members face challenges due to various aspects, such as different personalities, inadequate information, the presence of many priorities, as well as increased time constraints. Nonetheless, a useful decision should be timely. Therefore, contingency plans help reduce the pressure that results from the need for changes. Also, contingency plans assist groups in improving their preparation for unforeseen events. Unexpected events affect the success of the decision-making process. Since making a decision requires quality time and resources, there is a need to plan ahead of an event.
Decision making determines the progress of a group. In the case study, Sloan Women in Management (SWIM) club plans to hold a conference, and members are not aware of the correct choice to make due to weather forecasts of snowfalls and numerous competing alternatives. For SWIM, information is an essential element of successful decision making. While SWIM is facing information shortage, the group needs to utilize the available resources to make an appropriate decision.
What Sloan Women in Management club Should Do
The best decision for SWIM club is holding a half-day conference with concurrent speakers, since rescheduling the event is problematic. Since the snowstorm may occur in the afternoon based on the weather forecast, organizing the half-day event is appropriate. Irrespective of the weather condition during the conference day, speakers will attend the event. Also, canceling the conference would result in increased cost of operations. The main aim of the group is to succeed in holding the conference and leaving behind a legacy. While the winter storm poses a threat to the success of the event, there is a need to proceed with the whole process. However, the decision will have both significant benefits and consequences.
A Half-day Conference with Concurrent Speakers
Improved relationship between the sponsors and SWIM, the enhanced legacy of SWIM, and reduced cost of operations will occur if the groups decide to hold a half-day conference. The sponsors want to see their money appropriately utilized in the event. Hence, the success of the conference will boost their confidence in SWIM, increasing the chances for success of future events. On the other hand, the legacy of SWIM will improve significantly.
Ways to Develop Contingency Plans in the Future
Contingency planning is essential for minimizing the effect of an unforeseen or anticipated change in the operations or activities of Sloan Women in Management (SWIM) club. The planning helps the club to respond to the unexpected crisis as well as emergency situations. For SWIM club, contingencies include the impossibility of finding a convenient date for the event if the current one fails, severe snow, winter storm, and fallout with corporate sponsors and attendees as well as increased costs resulting from canceling the conference. The first stage in developing contingency plans is to pinpoint the contingencies capable of affecting the activities of SWIM. The stage articulates the purpose as well as goals of contingency plans and helps in assessing situations, such as severe weather conditions and their possible impacts. Moreover, the stage offers an opportunity to develop and prioritize the necessary tasks and actions for a particular situation.
In the future, the group should organize for contingency planning meetings to conduct discussions and evaluations of the situations from an organization perspective. To ensure the success of the contingency plans, the group should identify and examine the contingencies regularly by involving all members as well as stakeholders of the organization. During the planning sessions, members of the team should create a list of specific severe case scenarios, such as winter storms and snow. Nonetheless, the list should not contain case scenarios connected to the conference day situations only; thus, including contingencies which happen before, during and after the conference day is essential. Moreover, when brainstorming about contingencies, team members should consider the external and internal sources of contingencies. For instance, an external source of contingency could be weather changes and an internal source can include a change in membership of the group. Principally, the group should not wait for situations to arise before addressing them. After completing the process of identifying the contingencies, the organization should assess the magnitude of effect the events have on the conference and other activities of the group. The magnitude could be low, medium or high. For example, the magnitude of a fallout with corporate sponsors and attendees is high. Additionally, the team needs to determine the likelihood of the event occurring in future. The possibility can be medium, high or low. For instance, since the Boston area has a history of snow as well as winter storm contingency plans for such events have a high priority. Therefore, the organization can gather necessary resources for addressing the events. The final steps involve developing and implementing the action plan. The action plan should include stipulated time, resources and budget.
Engaging in Decision-making in Organizations
Decision making is an essential process in organizations. The process determines the effectiveness of a group or an organization. However, engaging in decision-making in organizations is difficult due to specific reasons. Firstly, incomplete or inadequate information results in uncertainty during the decision-making process. Since decisions entail evaluating different complex variables, inadequate information causes erroneous assumptions as well as uncertainties, leading to poor choices. Also, selecting the appropriate information to use in making a decision is a problem, especially when there is too much information to choose from. Therefore, the process of making the correct decision, especially when there is limited information, is challenging.
Secondly, time pressure affects the way people think and act along the course. For instance, time pressure results from the need to select the correct time for making the necessary choice. Time pressure leads to increased stress level among the decision makers, affecting their cognitive processes, such as reasoning, the span of paying attention to detail, and memory, critical for decision making. Furthermore, as a result of time pressure, decision-makers can over-rely on negative information or reduce their attention to critical aspects, leading to performance deterioration in the process. While participating in the decision-making process in organizations, people work based on the stipulated timeframe; hence the need to make timely decisions. Therefore, people are likely to make wrong decisions due to time constraints, making the decision difficult to engage in.
Thirdly, in an organization, people have different personalities and priorities. During decision making, stakeholders should address such differences to achieve desired results. However, dealing with various personalities and preferences is a significant challenge, particularly when participants have diverse opinion on a critical aspect associated with the main direction of the course. Also, sorting through options of the group members to align with critical decisions is time-consuming, mainly when there are many stakeholders.
Conclusion
In conclusion, decision making is a fundamental part of success in an organization. When there is inadequate information, the decision-making process becomes difficult. However, involving all members of a group in decision making is the key to achievement. To avoid the same challenges in decision making in the future, SWIM club should embrace the most appropriate contingency plans.
