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You are here: Home / Archives for Decision making

Articles tagged Decision making

by JD Solomon 1 Comment

Three Reasons Reliability Professionals Should Not Care about the Decision

Three Reasons Reliability Professionals Should Not Care about the Decision

Reliability professionals are trusted advisors. Being a trusted advisor to a person making the biggest career decision is an enormous job—as is making a good, big decision. Where most advisors lose the “trust” in “trusted advisor” is when they mix the roles of “advisor” with “decision maker.” Advisors and analysts must first be true to their data and information. How that information is used is not something you control. These are three reasons a reliability professional should not care about the decision.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Communicating with FINESSE, on Systems Thinking Tagged With: credibility, Decision making, technical professionals, trusted advisor

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Making the Decision to Improve

Making the Decision to Improve

Co-authored by Mike Vella

Hard work alone doesn’t guarantee success in business. Even after you’ve invested your inspiration, money, emotions, creativity, and prayers, the reality is that we live in a highly competitive world. You can’t afford to simply tread water. So, let’s assume you’ve either made a strong start in your field or joined a profitable company. What ensures that your future will be better than today? The answer lies in leadership and the team deciding to continually evolve, change, and improve.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy Tagged With: Decision making

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

Consider the Decision Making First

Consider the Decision Making First

Reliability activities serve one purpose: to support better decision making.

That is all it does. Reliability work may reveal design weaknesses, which we can decide to address. Reliability work may estimate the longevity of a device, allowing decisions when compared to objectives for reliability.

Creating a report that no one reads is not the purpose of reliability. Running a test or analysis to simply ‘do reliability’ is not helpful to anyone. Anything with MTBF involved … well, you know how I feel about that. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF Tagged With: Decision making

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Virtual Decisions: Art and Reality of Indecision

Virtual Decisions: Art and Reality of Indecision

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

“Any decision is better than No Decision” goes the Law of Decision making.  However, sitting on the fence, humming and hawing, chewing the cud, weighing every option, exploring every avenue and leaving no stone unturned can, and often does, eventually amount to, at the end of the day, and in its cold light, without beating about the bush, or wasting any more time…indecision.

Indecision, at least for those affected, leads to a number of things including frustration, demotivation, and anger.  These feelings are not felt by those who dwell in indecision as they are blissfully unaware and are ignorantly oblivious as to the adverse effects of their procrastination.  They are also incognizant as to their responsibility for wasting everybody’s precious time as well as being bewilderingly ignorant that a definitive decision to do nothing may allow for some productive work elsewhere.  But they would rather keep people on tenterhooks and in a state of limbo and avoid any gainful and concurrent activity.  Productivity for them is of no consequence…people can always catch up later…or can they?!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CERM® Risk Insights, on Risk & Safety Tagged With: Decision making

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Time: Friend or Foe, Risk or Opportunity?

Time: Friend or Foe, Risk or Opportunity?

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

“Time and tide wait for no man”.  King Canute demonstrated that the ebb and flow of the tide are inevitable and even a king has no control over them.  Time, perhaps our most precious resource, is also no exception.  Who hasn’t regretted not doing something because there wasn’t enough time, or time ran out as we wasted too much time deciding to do something and the opportunity slipped through our fingers? 

On the other hand, how often do we regret having made a hurried decision and have had to live with dire consequences which, in hindsight could well have been avoided if we’d had more time or rather, made better use of the time available.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CERM® Risk Insights, on Risk & Safety Tagged With: Decision making

by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

Series Kickoff: The Seven Bones of the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram

Series Kickoff: The Seven Bones of the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram

In the upcoming months, look for an article on each of the seven bones of the FINESSE fishbone diagram. I’ll provide three insights and a three-minute video on each bone. You’ll see the cause-and-effect relationships and why communication is a system just like any other type of physical system. The series is a good introduction for those unfamiliar with FINESSE and a refresher for those who are.

Systems Thinking

A system is a collection of interrelated or interacting parts, each of which can affect the behavior or outcomes of the whole. One defining property of a system is that it provides a function that none of the parts can accomplish by themselves. The corollary is that a system is not the sum of the parts but the product of their interactions.

A communication system is the same as any other system. The good news for technical professionals is that you do not have the best-looking, most eloquent, or smartest person in the room to be an effective communicator. You just need to trust the system.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Communicating with FINESSE, on Systems Thinking Tagged With: Decision making, effective communication, FINESSE, systems thinking

by Pete Stuart Leave a Comment

Shaping Organizational Behavior

Shaping Organizational Behavior

When conducting a Human Reliability Assessment (HRA), we use the terminology errors of commission or errors of omission. It behooves every professional to question why we focus on one metric in preference to all others in an objective and constructive manner in order to discern whether we are exposing our organization to errors of professional omission or commission. The other conclusion is that we are doing the right thing and this is also an empowering piece of knowledge.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF Tagged With: Decision making, Metrics, Value

by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

How Building Better Business Cases Improves Reliability

A Business Case Evaluation (BCE) is a decision-making tool that assists in making value-based funding decisions. Business cases are developed in the early capital and operating budget planning cycles as a standardized and systematic process to analyze the benefits and costs of various options to solve an identified problem or a cost-saving/revenue-generating idea. A big part of building better business cases is analyzing the system over the long term for monetary and non-monetary aspects. Building better business cases improves reliability and performance by formally documenting “needs” versus “wants.” Business cases serve as a powerful communication tool at all levels of an organization. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Communicating with FINESSE, on Systems Thinking, Uncategorized Tagged With: Business Cases, communication, Decision making

by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

Why Managing Dissenting Views is Critical for Good Group Decision Making

Why Managing Dissenting Views is Critical for Good Group Decision Making

Majority voting and consensus decision making are two distinct approaches to making decisions in group environments, each with its own characteristics and implications. Consensus decision-making is an alternative to debate and passage of proposals that can be approved through a majority vote. It does not emphasize the goal of the full agreement but instead focuses on acceptance or “living with it.” Choosing the right method for the context, and more importantly, managing the dissenting view, is important in making good group decisions.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Communicating with FINESSE, Influence, on Systems Thinking Tagged With: Decision making, Facilitation

by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

Why Fist to Five is a Powerful Decision-Making Technique

Why Fist to Five is a Powerful Decision-Making Technique

Fist to five voting is a simple and effective way to gather group feedback or to gauge consensus in a meeting or discussion. In this method, participants are asked to rate their level of support for an idea or proposal on a scale of 1 to 5, using their fingers. However, fist to five is a decision-making technique that should be described in the project charter and agreed upon by all participants. Ample time should be allowed between the initial poll and the final vote for negotiation and agreement to occur. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Communicating with FINESSE, on Systems Thinking Tagged With: Decision making

by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

Why Environmental Decision Making Is Difficult (and what to do about it)

Why Environmental Decision Making Is Difficult (and what to do about it)

All decisions require an allocation of resources. In the case of environmental decisions, the way we spend our time, money, or behaviors changes the quality of life and the people around us. In addition to two precursors, there are seven reasons environmental decisions are difficult. Approaching the many parts of environmental decision making as a system produces five ways we can allocate resources in an effective manner. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Communicating with FINESSE, on Systems Thinking Tagged With: Decision making

by Carl S. Carlson Leave a Comment

Pugh Analysis and FMEA

Pugh Analysis and FMEA

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are times when an FMEA facilitator has difficulty arriving at consensus with the FMEA team. This sometimes happens when there are two or more competing ideas or solutions and members of the team feel strongly about their personal idea or solution. One tool that can be used to solve this problem is called Pugh Analysis, a type of decision matrix.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Inside FMEA, on Tools & Techniques Tagged With: Decision making

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

Managing Up – Beyond the Analysis Numbers

Managing Up – Beyond the Analysis Numbers

Often when we request an analysis from an engineer we run with the results and don’t ask a lot of questions about the analysis itself.  Having done a lot of analysis  I am familiar with all the assumptions and estimations that go into making a calculation work.  But that means that the results of the analysis are only relevant to those assumptions and estimations.  The analyst may have to make the following “calls” without additional input or only a small fact-finding mission. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Apex Ridge, Articles, on Product Reliability Tagged With: Decision making

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

How to Make Smarter Decisions

How to Make Smarter Decisions

Guest Post by Greg Hutchins (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Did we get it all wrong?  Wow!  This could break our business model.  Let me explain:

We developed Certified Enterprise Risk Manager® and all of our risk IP based on a simple fact.  We live in VUCA time (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity).  We based our business business model on providing:

  • Risk-based, problem-solving.
  • Risk-based, decision-making.™

So, what’s the problem? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CERM® Risk Insights, on Risk & Safety Tagged With: Decision making

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Making Decisions That Work For You!

Making Decisions That Work For You!

Guest Post by Ed Perkins (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

There is a lot of literature written on decision making, ‘how to’, best practices, process, factors and so to follow to make ‘good’ decisions.  We have been exploring ‘risk based’  decision making in these blogs.  We have looked at factors, process, frameworks, psychology and bias.

But we have not discussed perhaps the most important aspect of any decision – implementation or that double edged word ‘execution.’  (Of course this assumes that the decision maker wants something to actually happen as a result of the decision, but that is a topic for another day).

Let’s use the nicer word – Implementation – which implies there is a course of ACTION, with a timeframe for results to be produced or to occur. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CERM® Risk Insights, on Risk & Safety Tagged With: Decision making

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