JMP Connections

6Decision Streams

ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR LAST DECISION

Another facet about decisions and the impact the process has on results is the fact that no single decision in a typical day when made correctly or optimally necessarily will reflect on performance. Many good decisions, whether small, medium, or large over a quarter, season, or campaign, should and will have a positive exponential effect on the management of corporate performance. Think of decisions in terms of good and bad streams on the order of a laminar flow water jet [39]. When all the molecules are going in the same direction parallel to each other, it is a beautiful thing. A series of bad decisions is the opposite, having negative consequences for corporate performance management (CPM).

Are firms doing accounting on the countless decisions that are made each day? Are firms tracking decisions in an aggregated statistical manner over time within the context of categorical attributes such as criticality, impact/risk, relationships, geo proximity, valuation, outcomes, and so forth? Perhaps only military organizations conduct these types of analysis in their training and real-time evaluations of the battle space.

Much depends on the type of decision, whether you are talking about programmed or non-programmed decision-making activities. There are many good slide presentations on the Web for a general overview. No matter what the decision environment or scope, better information and knowledge brings about better decisions. ...