Harold,
Perhaps we can inject some clarity of thought...or at least of language.
Referring to the 2nd sentence in your email below that states, "any rational
decision-making process increases options rather than reduces options". As
a scholar I live for the abstract (and sometimes even picayune) debate;
however, after having been a leader and manager in the military and business
for over 20 years, I can attest without hesitation that to make the decision
is to eliminate all but one option, which usually leads to then executing
the chosen option. Methinks anyone who argues otherwise is most likely
doing so from the position of never having been held accountable as a
decision-maker in an organization.
For sake of an abstract discussion though, I'll concede a difference between
decision-making, the point of which is to make the best decision by
whichever criteria the organization uses to evaluate decision-making, and a
decision-making process, the point of which is to have a systematic,
multi-step process for reliably making good decisions. I'll further concede
that decision-making processes should include an option-generating phase up
front; however, eventually the process must also incorporate an option
reducing mechanism (normally through some option evaluating mechanism) just
prior to making the decision.
I've not read Horst Rittel, but I will soon. Fred Fiedler has written on
related topics. One interesting focus of Fiedler's work has to do with
intuitive versus intellectual leaders: basing decision making on experience
and heuristic judgment versus analysis. Both kinds of leaders can be
successful, given that they are matched with the kind of group/setting that
predominantly demands their type of leadership. Particularly in the context
of decision making as related to critical infrastructures as alluded to a
few emails past. Here time available to make the decision is a critical
factor favoring one decision making style over another.
However, from your distinction between judgments and decisions (i.e.,
decisions can be shared relatively unchanged beyond the decision maker but
judgments remain intrinsic to the judgment maker alone and cannot
effectively be shared?)can I infer you posit a distinction between the
processes of judgment making and decision making? Thinking in system terms:
inputs, processes, outputs, and feedback, I'm not clear at which point you
make the distinction. I can think of artifacts resulting from both
decisions and judgments, which are specifically designed to share as
accurately as possible the information content of either the judgment or the
decision. I need to think about this some more. Merriam-Webster Online
offers several definitions for judgment; some seem output oriented: "1 a : a
formal utterance of an authoritative opinion b : an opinion so
pronounced...", while others seem process oriented: "4 a : the process of
forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing...". The
language for decision speaks in the same terms: a decision is an output or
it involves a process. Your work is intriguing but I caution care in making
declarative statements that may be difficult to support (e.g., judgments
cannot be shared)...
cheers,
Lee
-----Original Message-----
From: Harold Nelson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 12:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Judgment and Decision-making
Terry
There is a related idea concerning judgment that Horst Rittel proposed.
Since any rational decision-making process increases options rather
than reduces options, Horst said that every decision-making process was
terminated by an "off hand judgment" leaving one option for further
consideration. In other words it leads to an opinion or 'expert
opinion'. This is demonstrated by the many conflicting expert opinions
that emerge in complex cases. An interesting counterpoint to this is
the emergent popularity of "naturalistic decision making" where
judgment is treated as a process that can be described and explained
scientifically. One of the intentions of course is to create expert
systems that can make judgments in place of humans. I suspect that
judgment and decision-making are distinct processes and that one is not
a subset of the other. But I also believe they are quite interrelated
systemically.
Regards
Harold
On Monday, August 18, 2003, at 04:43 AM, Terence Love wrote:
> Hi Harold,
>
> Drat! I thought this one at least was straightforward. I can see
> where you are going with your approach. It aligns with the idea that
> 'judgements' as in Law are recorded and hence public information
> 'objects' (no pun intended), and this contrasts with 'decision-making'
> as a human process.
>
> An alternative, which is the direction I had been following has
> 'judgement' as a distinctly human element of decision making. ('a
> mental act or attitude of decision by which the process of
> observation, comparison and rationcination is terminated' as put in a
> rather old fashioned way by Webster Comprehensive Encyclopedic Edition
> (1986)). Thus, from this perspective decision-making is a broader
> process that can include all sorts of activities like informationa
> gathering, analysis, discussion, lobbying, reflection etc. but in the
> limit, it requires a particularly unique human internal process
> involving reflexive activity between imagogenic, emotional, feeling
> and selfconscious processes that result in a preference for a
> particular outcome as a result of individuals' bodies feeling better
> or worse. This is a pretty unique biological process as it creates a
> real and releatively reliable singular outcome from reflecting on
> situations that may involve complex objects, relationships, contexts,
> perspectives - physical, social and historical. This is a 'holy
> grail' of optimisation models such as multicriteria, weighting
> methods. If the word 'judgement' is not used for this human activity
> that contributes to decision-making (and it is fairly standard in
> psychological/cognitive analyses) then we need some other word that
> is at least as good. Any ideas?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Terry
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harold Nelson
> Sent: 18/08/2003 12:33 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Judgment and Decision-making
>
>
> Dear Lubomir et al
>
> At present I am working on a project developing a course on judgment
> and decision making for a graduate program in Strategic Planning for
> Critical Infrastructures. The distinction I make between judgment and
> decision making is based on the work I am doing with Erik Stolterman.
> It is based on the understanding that these two distinctions represent
> two types of knowledge. The first type is a form of knowledge that can
> be separated from the decision maker, has application to other
> situations, can be communicated to other decision makers, can be stored
> in information systems etc. The second type of knowledge cannot be
> separated from the knower and has no instrumental value outside of the
> situation for which it was produced and is only revealed through the
> actions of the judgment maker. Learning how to make good judgments then
> becomes a very different enterprise from learning to make good
> decisions.
>
> Harold
>
>
>
>
Harold G. Nelson, Ph.D., M. Arch.
President; Advanced Design Institute
www.advanceddesign.org
Past-President; International Society for Systems Science
www.isss.org
Affiliated faculty, Engineering, U. Wash.
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