Module- SLP Decision-Making Biases and Pitfalls

We've all had experiences where we have been frustrated by a decision that our supervisor made. You have probably blamed this decision on your boss being "closed-minded," "stubborn," or "pigheaded." But after reading the background materials you should be able to more precisely examine and define the precise decision-making biases or pitfalls that your supervisor made.

For this assignment, think of three bad decisions that your current or past supervisors made. For each decision, explain what bias discussed in the background materials likely led to this bad decision. You must use biases specifically discussed in Bolland and Fletcher (2012); Kourdi (2003); or Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa (2008). For each of the three decisions, include:

A) A brief description of the decision and why you think it was a bad one

B) What kind of bias you think lead to this decision, and why

C) A reference to one of the background readings from this module

Finally, conclude your paper with a discussion about which of the three readings from the background materials would be most useful for your supervisor to read in order to help make better decisions and avoid biases. Explain why you think this reading would be more useful than the other two readings.

The paper should be 2-3 pages in length.

Bolland, E., & Fletcher, F. (Eds.). (2012). Chapter 2: Optimizing decision making and avoiding pitfalls. Solutions: Business Problem Solving. Abingdon, GBR: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., pp. 19-25 [Ebrary. Note: you only need to read the first seven pages in this chapter. The rest of the chapter will be covered in Module 3]

Kourdi, J. (2003). Chapter 3: Pitfalls. Business Strategy: A Guide to Effective Decision Making.Princeton, NJ, USA: Bloomberg Press. [Ebrary]

Hammond, J. S., Keeney, R. L., & Raiffa, H. (1998). The hidden traps in decision-making. Harvard Business Review, 76(5), 47-58. [Business Source Complete]

When you are done reading the above chapters and articles, review and test your knowledge with the following interactive tutorial which includes a quiz on decision-making biases.