Applying design thinking to the decision-making process: a field study in Swedish local authorities

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Elisabeth Frisk ◽  
Frank Bannister
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision

PurposeThis study aims to examine the application of design thinking to complex decision-making processes in local government and to link the design thinking to the theoretical work of leading thinkers in decision-making.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses multiple case studies, including non-participant observation, group discussions, semi-structured interviews, presentations and questionnaires.FindingsFor complex decisions, design thinking can contribute to more effective decision-making by expanding the range of solutions considered, people consulted and involved, sources of data/information and decision tools as well as in achieving buy-in to the eventual decision.Research limitations/implicationsThe principal limitations include that this is one study in one country and in the public sector. There were some practical problems with external factors disrupting two of the cases, but these do not affect the findings. The principal implication is that by adopting a design thinking approach to complex decision-making, the quality of decision-making and decisions can be significantly improved.Practical implicationsWhen it comes to complex decisions, organisations can improve the quality of both their decision-making processes and their decisions by adopting and implementing ideas and insights from design thinking.Social implicationsFor local authorities, a design approach can enhance the quality of the services provided by local authorities to citizens in particular in better meeting the needs of users and other stakeholders and in opening up better lines of communications between officials and citizens.Originality/valueThis research was based on an initiative in Swedish local government and its first implementation in practice. The authors are not aware of any similar study done elsewhere.

A Mashup Application to Support Complex Decision Making for Retail Consumers

2012 ◽  
pp. 277-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Walczak ◽  
Deborah L. Kellogg ◽  
Dawn G. Gregg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Decision Quality ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Time Required ◽  
Decision Complexity

Purchase processes often require complex decision making and consumers frequently use Web information sources to support these decisions. However, increasing amounts of information can make finding appropriate information problematic. This information overload, coupled with decision complexity, can increase time required to make a decision and reduce decision quality. This creates a need for tools that support these decision-making processes. Online tools that bring together data and partial solutions are one option to improve decision making in complex, multi-criteria environments. An experiment using a prototype mashup application indicates that these types of applications may significantly decrease time spent and improve overall quality of complex retail decisions.

A Mashup Application to Support Complex Decision Making for Retail Consumers

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Walczak ◽  
Deborah L. Kellogg ◽  
Dawn G. Gregg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Decision Quality ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Time Required ◽  
Decision Complexity

Purchase processes often require complex decision making and consumers frequently use Web information sources to support these decisions. However, increasing amounts of information can make finding appropriate information problematic. This information overload, coupled with decision complexity, can increase time required to make a decision and reduce decision quality. This creates a need for tools that support these decision-making processes. Online tools that bring together data and partial solutions are one option to improve decision making in complex, multi-criteria environments. An experiment using a prototype mashup application indicates that these types of applications may significantly decrease time spent and improve overall quality of complex retail decisions.

How to evaluate multichannel communication packages: a case study on mortgage information

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 857-878 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.L.C. Herijgers ◽  
Henk L.W. Pander Maat
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Consumer Information ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Media Synchronicity ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Channel Preferences

Purpose – Complex decision-making is often supported not by single messages but by multichannel communication packages that need to be evaluated in their own right. The purpose of this paper is to present a new analytic approach to this package evaluation task combining textual analysis, functional analysis (FA) and media synchronicity theory. Design/methodology/approach – The authors combine textual analysis, FA and media synchronicity and demonstrate this in a single case analysis of a multichannel communication package offering mortgage information. Findings – When applied to a mortgage communication package for consumers, the evaluation reveals significant problems concerning the contents and timing of mortgage information and the channels chosen to convey it. Research limitations/implications – This paper outlines a new direction for evaluating multichannel consumer information, in that it does not focus on user channel preferences but on channel requirements stemming from the communicative task to be performed. Practical implications – This paper enables designers to optimize the design of multichannel communication packages and its individual components to support customer’s decision-making processes with regards to complex products. Social implications – Improving information to guide complex decision-making processes leads to better informed consumers. Originality/value – Research into effective multichannel communication within marketing is in its infancy. This paper offers a new perspective by focusing on channel requirements stemming from the communicative task rather than consumers’ channel preferences.

scholarly journals Questioning Facilities Management in Higher Education in Egyptian Context for Better Decision-Making Process of Funding Allocation

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Mona Mohamed Abd Elghany ◽  
Reem Aly Elharakany
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Quality Of Education ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Facilities Management ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Strategic Relationships

The quality of education is influenced by the managerialization of the universities, which refers to the introduction of substantial changes in the decision-making processes of the academic institutions, and the application of renewed information systems along with new managerial methodologies to restructure the organisational strategic relationships with stakeholders. This paper proposes a questionnaire to assess the importance of facilities in universities according to their financial budget consumed value. Semi Structured Interviews were conducted with the heads of logistic and financial departments in Egyptian universities, twenty public universities and twenty-three private universities, in order to identify criteria for the most significant university's facilities and appealing infrastructure that contributes to the quality of education.

scholarly journals ЭФФЕКТИВНОСТЬ МЕТОДОВ ОПРЕДЕЛЕНИЯ ГРУППОВЫХ СИСТЕМ ПРЕДПОЧТЕНИЙ ДИСПЕТЧЕРОВ НА ОПАСНОСТИ ХАРАКТЕРНЫХ ОШИБОК, СОВЕРШАЕМЫХ В ПРОЦЕССЕ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ ВОЗДУШНЫМ ДВИЖЕНИЕМ

2018 ◽  
pp. 93-103
Author(s):  
Алексей Николаевич Рева ◽  
Шахин Шахвели-оглы Насиров ◽  
Бала Мушгюль-оглы Мирзоев
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Parametric Optimization ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Main Emphasis ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Coefficient Of Concordance ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Non Parametric

The human factor problem should be solved by identifying, qualifying and preventing the erroneous actions of the air traffic controllers. It is presented two schemes explaining the structure of human qualimetry factor and the interaction of the components of the ICAO safety concept, where the main emphasis is on an aviation personnel’ attitude to dangerous actions or conditions, which is revealed by the qualimetry of the decision-making processes’ characteristics: the attitude towards risk (the main dominants and fuzzy assessments), levels of claims, dangerous qualities and preferences systems. The preferences systems are considered as ordered characteristics and indicators of professional activity, which are subjectively compared with the positions of influence on flight safety. The spectrum of n = 21 characteristic errors was formed considering the recommendations of ICAO, EUROCONTROL and accident statistics. It is determined that procedures of collecting the information of errors danger contribute their recognition, memorization, and avoidance: controllers who passed the test according to the proposed method before training made by one third fewer errors in its process. Two criteria for assessing group preferences are realized: the level of consensus (known as Kendall’s coefficient of concordance) and the severity of the ranking, determined by the presence of "related" ranks, for which a special indicator is introduced. It is defined that this indicator should be determined both for the sample of respondents and for the preferences group systems of developed with the chosen method of individual opinions’ aggregation. It was performed the comparative analysis of complex decision-making strategies of effectiveness in the construction of a preferences group systems m = 65 controllers: sum and averaging of ranks, classical criteria (Wald's, Savage's and Laplace's criterion), optimal prediction, applying the non-parametric optimization of the preferences group systems. The non-parametric optimization of the group system of pre-readings was carried out by Kemeny median and it was proved that it was the closest to all the results obtained by other methods and strategies

Drifting the goals archetype: a systemic study

Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Virupaxi Bagodi ◽  
Biswajit Mahanty
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Systems Thinking ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Current Reality

PurposeManagerial decision-making is an area of interest to both academia and practitioners. Researchers found that managers often fail to manage complex decision-making tasks and system thinkers assert that generic structures known as systems archetypes help them to a great deal in handling such situations. In this paper, it is demonstrated that decision makers resort to lowering of goal (quick-fix) in order to resolve the gap between the goal and current reality in the “drifting the goals” systems archetype.Design/methodology/approachA real-life case study is taken up to highlight the pitfalls of “drifting the goals” systems archetype for a decision situation in the Indian two-wheeler industry. System dynamics modeling is made use of to obtain the results.FindingsThe decision makers fail to realize the pitfall of lowering the goal to resolve the gap between the goal and current reality. It is seen that, irrespective of current less-than-desirable performance, managers adopting corrective actions other than lowering of goals perform better in the long run. Further, it is demonstrated that extending the boundary and experimentation results in designing a better service system and setting benchmarks.Practical implicationsThe best possible way to avoid the pitfall is to hold the vision and not lower the long term goal. The managers must be aware of the pitfalls beforehand.Originality/valueSystems thinking is important in complex decision-making tasks. Managers need to embrace long-term perspective in decision-making. This paper demonstrates the value of systems thinking in terms of a case study on the “drifting the goals” systems archetype.

Decision Making Approaches for Advanced Manufacturing Technology Evaluation and Selection

2012 ◽  
pp. 403-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aidé Maldonado-Macías ◽  
Jorge Luis García-Alcaraz ◽  
Francisco Javier Marrodan Esparza ◽  
Carlos Alberto Ochoa Ortiz Zezzatti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Manufacturing Technology ◽  
Advanced Manufacturing Technology ◽  
Advanced Manufacturing ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Broad Variety ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Selection Of

Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) constitutes one of the most important resources of manufacturing companies to achieve success in an extremely competitive world. Decision making processes for the Evaluation and Selection of AMT in these companies must lead to the best alternative available. Industry is looking for a combination of flexibility and high quality by doing significant investments in AMT. The proliferation of this technology has generated a whole field of knowledge related to the design, evaluation and management of AMT systems which includes a broad variety of methodologies and applications. This chapter presents a theoretical review of the term AMT, its diverse classification and a collection of the most effective multi-attribute models and methodologies available to support these processes. Relevant advantages are found in these models since they can manage complex decision making problems which involve large amount of information and attributes. These attributes frequently can be tangible and intangible when vagueness and uncertainty exist. There are several multi-attribute methodologies which are extensively known and used in literature; nevertheless, a new fuzzy multi-attribute axiomatic design approach is explained for an ergonomic compatibility evaluation of AMT.

scholarly journals Supporting surgeons in patient-centred complex decision-making: a qualitative analysis of the impact of a perioperative physician clinic

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. e033277
Author(s):  
Clarabelle T Pham ◽  
Catherine L Gibb ◽  
Robert A Fitridge ◽  
Jon Karnon ◽  
Elizabeth Hoon
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Elective Surgery ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Complex Patients ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Additional Value ◽  
The Impact ◽  
High Risk Clinic

ObjectivePatients with comorbidities can be referred to a physician-led high-risk clinic for medical optimisation prior to elective surgery at the discretion of the surgical consultant, but the factors that influence this referral are not well understood. The aims of this study were to understand the factors that influence a surgeon’s decision to refer a patient to the clinic, and how the clinic impacts on the management of complex patients.DesignQualitative study using theoretical thematic analysis to analyse transcribed semi-structured interviews.SettingInterviews were held in either the surgical consultant’s private office or a quiet office/room in the hospital ward.ParticipantsSeven surgical consultants who were eligible to refer patients to the clinic.ResultsWhen discussing the factors that influence a referral to the clinic, all participants initially described the optimisation of comorbidities and would then discuss with examples the challenges with managing complex patients and communicating the risks involved with having surgery. When discussing the role of the clinic, two related subthemes were dominant and focused on the management of risk in complex patients. The participants valued the involvement of the clinic in the decision-making and communication of risks to the patient.ConclusionsThe integration of the high-risk clinic in this study appears to offer additional value in supporting the decision-making process for the surgical team and patient beyond the clinical outcomes. The factors that influence a surgeon’s decision to refer a patient to the clinic appear to be driven by the aim to manage the uncertainty and risk to the patient regarding surgery and it was seen as a strategy for managing difficult and complex cases.

A case-based reasoning system for fault detection and isolation: a case study on complex gearboxes

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumava Boral ◽  
Sanjay Kumar Chaturvedi ◽  
V.N.A. Naikan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Fault Detection ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fault Detection And Isolation ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Case Based Reasoning ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Case Based

Purpose Usually, the machinery in process plants is exposed to harsh and uncontrolled environmental conditions. Even after taking different types of preventive measures to detect and isolate the faults at the earliest possible opportunity becomes a complex decision-making process that often requires experts’ opinions and judicious decisions. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework to detect, isolate and to suggest appropriate maintenance tasks for large-scale complex machinery (i.e. gearboxes of steel processing plant) in a simplified and structured manner by utilizing the prior fault histories available with the organization in conjunction with case-based reasoning (CBR) approach. It is also demonstrated that the proposed framework can easily be implemented by using today’s graphical user interface enabled tools such as Microsoft Visual Basic and similar. Design/methodology/approach CBR, an amalgamated domain of artificial intelligence and human cognitive process, has been applied to carry out the task of fault detection and isolation (FDI). Findings The equipment failure history and actions taken along with the pertinent health indicators are sufficient to detect and isolate the existing fault(s) and to suggest proper maintenance actions to minimize associated losses. The complex decision-making process of maintaining such equipment can exploit the principle of CBR and overcome the limitations of the techniques such as artificial neural networks and expert systems. The proposed CBR-based framework is able to provide inference with minimum or even with some missing information to take appropriate actions. This proposed framework would alleviate from the frequent requirement of expert’s interventions and in-depth knowledge of various analysis techniques expected to be known to process engineers. Originality/value The CBR approach has demonstrated its usefulness in many areas of practical applications. The authors perceive its application potentiality to FDI with suggested maintenance actions to alleviate an end-user from the frequent requirement of an expert for diagnosis or inference. The proposed framework can serve as a useful tool/aid to the process engineers to detect and isolate the fault of large-scale complex machinery with suggested actions in a simplified way.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document