From the moment a project idea is born to the team's demise, managers have to make decisions to move forward. Decisions made in the planning and implementation of the project are diverse both in complexity and in the scale of the resources involved in their implementation. As a rule, decisions are a choice of several options or alternatives. At the same time, each alternative carries a greater or lesser risk of failure, failure, wasted resources, effort and time. Therefore, the task of the project manager and project team members is to evaluate alternative solutions both in terms of resource and time parameters, and in terms of the risks of failure or performance of work with inadequate quality.
Areas of adoption and types of decisions in project management
With all the variety of projects, five decision-making areas can be distinguished, each of which is characterized by certain types of decisions and requires the appropriate skills and experience of managers. The examples below do not cover all types of problems and their solutions, but only illustrate the idea of the diversity and complexity of the tasks for each area of decision making.
- 1. For the field of solutions related to initiation project, when there is an understanding that a certain project or project phase should begin and it is necessary to involve resources in their implementation, the following decisions are typical:
- about the idea of the project, its purpose;
- about the expectations of the project owner;
- about the importance of the project for the organization on the basis of which it will be implemented;
- about the end user of the project results;
- on methods for assessing project risks;
- on the technical feasibility of the project;
- about the limitations of the project;
- about the resource provision of the project and a number of others.
- 2. For the area of solutions for planning The following solutions are typical for a project:
- about decomposing the main stages into smaller, easier-to-manage components;
- about the definition of work to be performed to achieve the various objectives of the project;
- the responsibilities of project team members;
- about interactions and interdependencies between jobs;
- about what resources (people, equipment, materials) and in what quantities will be required to carry out the work of the project;
- on methods for estimating the cost of resources;
- on the choice of the structure of the project team;
- on how to link estimated costs to certain types activities;
- on the use of various planning methods and technologies for the implementation individual works project and many others.
- 3. Region performance
- about the procedure for formalizing the design of the project;
- on the appointment of executors and managers of individual project works;
- about the tasks of the project team members;
- on the choice between potential project suppliers;
- on the conclusion of work contracts;
- transfer of project management functions to outsourcing;
- on financing the stages of the project work;
- about ways to inform project stakeholders about the progress of execution, etc.
- 4.
For area control The project is characterized by solutions:
- about methods of monitoring and evaluating the work on the execution of the project;
- on the number of stages of control;
- on assessing the quality of project work;
- on reporting on the stages of the project work;
- on measures taken based on the results of control.
- 5. Area of problems completion The project is characterized by the following solutions:
- on the creation of a commission for the acceptance and transfer of the project to the customer;
- on evaluating the effectiveness of the project as a whole;
- regarding controversial issues between project stakeholders;
- on the conditions for closing contracts between project participants;
- about early completion of the project;
- on warranty obligations for the quality of the product or service of the project, etc.
All decisions made in project management can be divided into ordinary and administrative.
Ordinary solutions are the decisions that people make in everyday life. They are made by individuals, based on their personal interests and needs, and are in the nature of personal decisions. Since projects employ people who can pursue purely personal interests in their work, it is impossible to completely discount ordinary decisions, just the project management must ensure that ordinary interests do not go beyond the private life of people and do not affect their behavior when performing official functions.
Administrative decisions are taken to manage the project processes and are aimed at achieving certain project goals. They affect the interests of many people directly or indirectly associated with the project, so the responsibility of the project manager in making administrative decisions is high. He must be able to explain to team members, project owners, external stakeholders why he made this or that decision.
Administrative decisions can be divided into expert and managerial.
Expert Solutions are advisory in nature and are accepted by experts, analysts, consultants, i.e. persons who are not directly involved in the management of the project. For example, project financing solutions offered by independent financial analysts and consultants, or decisions on the environmental impact of a construction project, can be considered expert.
Management decisions are taken directly by managers and represent control actions aimed at achieving the goals of the project or its completion. They are undertaken to change the controllable factors affecting the project. After the management decision is made, it is communicated to the performers orally or is preliminarily drawn up in the form of a plan, order or other document.
IN project management four levels of decision-making can be distinguished, each of which requires the leader to master certain key skills (Table 7.1).
Decisions made on routine level, are of a routine nature, are frequently repeated procedures. The manager is guided by the instruction or the existing program of action. Such decisions form the basis of the day-to-day work of front-line project managers. Situations requiring these kinds of decisions are easily recognized. For example, such decisions are made by an accountant who issues a payment order in accordance with the invoice received, or an employee of the personnel department who prepares an order to dismiss an employee. Difficulties here can arise if the manager does not have a sense, misinterprets the available instructions for a particular situation, acts illogically, violates instructions, or shows indecision and cannot provide effective actions at the right time. At this level, no creativity is required, as all procedures are predetermined.
Table 7.1. Decision-making levels and key skills (according to M. Woodcock and D. Francis)
|
Decision level |
key skills |
|
Level One: Routine |
|
|
Level two: selective |
|
|
Level three: adaptation |
|
|
Level four innovative |
|
At the selective level of decision-making, initiative and freedom of action are required, but within limited limits. Here the manager evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of alternatives and tries to choose the best one. This may be a decision regarding the order of allocation of construction equipment for a particular object of the project or the choice of one of the candidates for the position of head of the department. Usually the choice between alternatives is not difficult to make, since the criteria are stable, consistent and understandable.
At the adaptation level, there are additional difficulties, since here the manager must develop creative solution, which in a certain sense can be absolutely new. There is usually a set of proven options and some new ideas. The success of a manager depends on his personal initiative and ability to put forward new ideas. Such solutions provide an answer to problems that could exist before, but in a different specific form. The leader is looking for a new solution to a known problem. For example, these types of solutions include new approaches to rewarding project personnel or finding additional sources of project funding. Such decisions are typical for project managers of middle and higher levels of management.
Innovation Level characterized by the most complex, non-standard problems. In order to achieve a satisfactory result, they require a completely new approach. Often such a problem can be one that was poorly understood before, and completely new ideas and methods are required to solve it. The leader must be able to understand completely new and unpredictable problems, the solution of which often requires the development of the ability to think in a new way. The most modern and difficult problems may require the creation of a new branch of science or technology to solve them. These types of problems often include investment decisions, especially those involving high risks. In some cases, it is necessary to create a new technical language, new computer programs, databases, tools or manufacturing facilities.
Useful for understanding the specifics of decisions in project management is the classification proposed by the American management theorist G. Simon. He proposed to divide all managerial decisions into programmed and non-programmed ones.
Programmed Solutions are accepted under well-defined conditions, and their adoption is a fixed sequence of steps in accordance with standard methods and rules, which reduces the likelihood of errors and increases the efficiency of decision-making, since it eliminates the need to develop new approaches, methods whenever an appropriate situation arises. Examples of such decisions could be scheduling employees, applying for Supplies, compiling a weekly or quarterly report on the work done, receiving materials in a warehouse or approving project documentation.
Unprogrammed decisions are new, unstructured solutions (that is, they cannot be broken down into a number of simple, programmed ones), standard methods cannot be applied to them, because they simply do not exist. The most important decisions in project management are non-programmed. They are characterized by a high level of uncertainty: making a decision does not automatically become a condition for its implementation.
On fig. 7.1 shows the relationship between certainty and uncertainty in decision making. As the level of certainty decreases and the level of uncertainty increases, decisions become less programmed.
Rice. 7.1.
It is the ability to make unprogrammed decisions that characterizes a good project manager, since a high level of intuition and understanding is required in making such decisions, therefore, especially in conditions of high project risk, a person who has a reputation as a good "problem solver" who knows how to find exit in the most difficult and confusing situation.
Decision-making permeates all management activities, decisions are made on a wide range of management tasks. No management function, regardless of which body performs it, can be implemented otherwise than through preparation and execution. management decisions. In essence, the entire set of activities of any management employee is somehow connected with the adoption and implementation of decisions. This, first of all, determines the importance of decision-making activities and its role in management. The well-known American specialist in management Herbert Simon called decision making "the essence of managerial activity". Further, he noted that any practical activity consists of a “decision” and an “action”. Management, therefore, can be seen as decision-making processes and as processes containing actions.
The second interpretation involves decision-making only in the context of the performance of individual management functions (planning, organization, motivation and control). It is from these positions that the management decision is considered in this manual.
The foregoing does not mean that financial, economic, production and other factors are not taken into account when making managerial decisions. The special importance of the decision-making function for human activity and its special role in the management process determine the need to consider all aspects of this function. With a scientific approach to the decision-making function, all of these aspects should be considered in a complex. An integrated approach ensures the completeness of the study of this function and contributes to a deeper understanding of the patterns of the decision-making process. An integrated approach, which involves taking into account economic, financial, legal, production and other factors, is implemented when analyzing a problem situation, setting goals, defining criteria, choosing solutions, performing other operations when making managerial decisions, which will be discussed in subsequent chapters of the book.
A characteristic feature of the management of any objects is the achievement of certain goals. This general feature can be taken as the basis for the definition of the control process. The process of management is the purposeful influence of the subject of management on the object of management in order to implement management functions.
The management process consists of a sequence of types of management activities that are cyclically repeated in time, which are called management functions. The allocation of functions in the control process can be performed with varying degrees of detail. Planning, organization, motivation and control are usually considered as the most common aggregated management functions.
Planning includes preplanning analysis and development of plans of different duration and focus. output ( end result) planning is an approved plan of one or another duration and content.
The organization involves the adaptation of an existing org. management structures for new goals and objectives formulated in the plan, rationalization of the distribution of tasks, responsibilities and rights, solving personnel issues, monitoring the progress of the plan and taking appropriate measures of the organizational plan in case of deviation from it, that is, organizational support for the implementation of the plan.
Motivation is aimed at stimulating effective work, both managers and employees of the organization. The whole arsenal is used here modern methods: economic, socio-psychological, factors corporate culture. Thus, motivational support is provided for the implementation planned assignments. Essentially, the functions of organization and motivation are the functions of ensuring the implementation of the adopted plan.
Sometimes, between the functions of organization and control, the functions of coordination and regulation are placed, which ensure the functioning of managed processes within the parameters specified by the plan. They are aimed at providing constant operational guidance to subordinates. The implementation of these functions ensures the smooth operation of the organization, the rapid removal of bottlenecks, the prompt redistribution of resources, the prevention of possible deviations, the establishment of normal business relations with higher organizations and subcontractors. These functions are based on information about the activity of the control object coming through the channels feedback.
These functions can be considered separately, or their component subfunctions can be divided into planning, organization, motivation and control functions. So, if during the implementation of the plan deviations were identified, then measures to eliminate them are implemented when performing the above functions, up to changing the planned targets.
The final control, in its analytical component, is aimed at assessing the level of implementation of planned targets. Control data, along with information about the state of the external environment, are necessary for developing a plan for the next planning period. Thus, the control function concludes this cycle control and at the same time provides information to start the next control cycle. From these positions, the boundary between the functions of control and planning in the management cycle is rather conditional, it all depends on the choice of the starting point of the planning cycle.
Solution is the choice of an alternative. The ability to make managerial decisions develops with experience. We make everyday decisions without systematic deliberation. We think over long-term decisions in life. In management, decision making is a systematic process. The reasons for this are the responsibility for making decisions, the consequences for the entire company.
Programmed organizational decision is the result of implementing a sequence of steps and actions. Unprogrammed decisions arise when it is impossible to pre-arrange a sequence necessary steps. For example, how to improve product quality, sales volume.
Compromises. Almost all management decisions have negative consequences. It is necessary to take into account the possible consequences on all parts of the organization as a system (systems approach). The leader must understand that unmade decisions, "vane" tactics have an even worse result than making a bad decision.
Decision-making approaches:- difficult to make good decisions;
- the decision maker is guided, among other things, by feelings, sometimes there is no logic in decisions.
- intuitive decisions are based on the feeling that the choice was made correctly. According to many successful leaders, many decisions (up to 80%) are made on the basis of intuition;
- Judgment-based management decisions are choices based on knowledge and experience gained in the past. Advantages: fast and cheap adoption. But the fear of new areas of activity can hold back the development of the company;
- rational decisions are justified through an objective analytical process, without relying on past experience.
Stages of a rational management decision
- Problem diagnosis. A problem is not only an unresolved issue, but also an opportunity. The information should be relevant – pertinent, pertinent.
- Formulation of restrictions and criteria for making managerial decisions. Constraints - the availability of resources from the manager and the organization so that decisions are realistic. The manager must have the authority to make this decision. Criteria are the standards by which alternative choices are to be judged. Criteria can be quantitative and qualitative. An example is the choice (purchase) of a car.
- Definition of alternatives. Consider the time and cost of the selection process.
- Evaluation of alternatives. The weighted average method is the cost (profit) of alternative projects. scoring method. Risk accounting.
- Choice of an alternative. The search for an optimal (maximizing solution) is difficult; a satisfactory solution is usually chosen.
- Implementation and feedback. Coordination of the obtained results with the expected ones.
Factors influencing the decision-making process
- Personal assessments of the leader. Subjective opinion about priority tasks, emphasis, for example, on economic problems, and not on social ones.
- Risk and uncertainty. Environmental factors. Uncertainty Reduction Opportunities: Obtaining additional information or actions in accordance with the accumulated experience.
- Time. Success won't come right away.
- The cost of information. The costs of information should be covered by income from its use and implementation. More information is not necessarily better.
- The relationship of decisions. Systems approach.
Decision-making methods
Apply procedures such as scientific method, which consists of the following steps:
- observation - collection and analysis of information;
- formulation of a hypothesis (assumptions). BCG matrix - company size / profit;
- verification - confirmation of the validity of the hypothesis.
- mathematical expectation (payoff matrix). The expected value of the indicator;
- decision tree;
- modeling. A model is a reduced, simplified copy of reality. The need for modeling is due to the complexity of processes, reducing the risks of implementation directly into practice, and the possibility of forecasts.
- physical model - an enlarged, reduced display of the object under study. Enterprise management structure;
- analog model - replaces the object under study with an analog object that behaves like a real object. Graph of the dependence of unit costs on the volume of production;
- mathematical model. Symbols and designations are used to describe the properties of an object, a formula.
Methods for forecasting rational management decisions
1. Informal information. Gossip. Industrial espionage.
2. Quantitative methods:
Time series analysis. Trends.
Task: Determine the volume of purchases of hamburgers in December, if over the past 5 years, demand in December has fallen by an average of 10% compared to November, and sales of hamburgers in a restaurant have grown by an average of 20% per year over the past 5 years.
Correlation-regression analysis. Correlation coefficient.
3. Qualitative methods:
- jury opinion. "Brainstorm";
- consumer expectation model. Based on the forecast of changes in demand;
- method of expert assessments. . The results of the survey of experts are returned to them for discussion 3-4 times. This is how experts agree.
Topic: "Management decision-making in the organization."
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………...…..2
1. The main stages of preparation of management decisions……………………5
2. Decision making process………………………………………………………6
2.1. The principle of the goal …………………………………………… ........................... 8
2.2. The principle of legal security of a management decision…………..10
2.3. The principle of control optimization………………………………………..11
2.4. The principle of delegation of authority……………………………………..16
3. Methods of making management decisions………………………………..19
3.1. Creative methods………………………………………………………….21
3.1.1. Systematic-logical methods………………………………………...23
3.1.2. Intuitive and creative methods…………………………………………27
3.2. Methods for evaluating and selecting alternatives……………………………………….35
3.2.1. Scoring methods………………………………………………….35
3.2.2. ABC analysis……………………………………………………………….38
3.2.3. Portfolio analysis……………………………………………………..41
3.2.4. "Decision tree"………………………………………………………...43
4. Decision making in difficult situations and the difficulties of its implementation.
4.1. Problems of Unique Choice……………………………………………....46
5.Practical part.………………………………………………………………..49
CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………...50
BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………….51
Introduction
The creation of a large number of enterprises of various forms of ownership during the formation of a market economy in our country led to the fact that managers had to learn to manage on their own, and not at the behest "from above". One of the elements of independent management of the enterprise's activities is making managerial decisions.
Management Decision Making Process relevant due to the fact that the scale, number of elements and relationships of sub-systems in organizational systems are expanding more and more. The complication of connections between the elements of the system causes uncertainty in the knowledge of the real structure of the system, which may be due to the so-called human factor, intentional or special distortion of information, etc.
Sometimes the definition of a management decision is limited only by the choice of a possible course of action. Such an approach impoverishes the content of this category of management theory and does not correspond to its essence.
Management decisions can be made applicable to any area of the organization: personnel management, financial management, production process management, including marketing service management.
The relevance of the work is explained by the fact that the existence of any organization is impossible without the constant daily adoption and implementation of certain decisions at various levels of management. At the same time, managerial decisions are aimed at achieving the most optimal result of the activity of the organizational and production system.
What is a decision? Let's try to give first the most general characteristics. Usually, in the course of any activity, situations arise when a person or a group of people is faced with the need to choose one of several possible options for action. The result of this choice will be the decision. Thus, a decision is a choice of an alternative. Each of us daily has to choose something dozens of times on our own experience, developing abilities and acquiring decision-making skills. There are many examples: the choice of clothes from the existing wardrobe, the choice of dishes from the proposed menu.
Any act of an individual or action of a collective is preceded by a decision. Decisions are a universal form of behavior of both an individual and social groups. This universality is explained by the conscious and purposeful nature of human activity. However, despite the universality of decisions, their adoption in progress organization management significantly different from decisions made in private life.
There are many different unique choice problems. First of all, we single out the problems in which, in principle, one can find rational, understandable to other people, a statement of the reasons that led to the choice of one of the alternatives (note that many human, "everyday" problems of choice do not fall under this definition). The most characteristic problems of rational choice are the problems that arise before people working in different administrative services - in the management of organizations and a set of organizations. Any employee of the administrative apparatus must be rational, if only in order to be able to explain to others the logical grounds for his choice.
Problems of choosing a rational management decision in unique situations, characteristic of administrative activities (the choice of an investment plan, the choice of research and development projects, the choice of a production plan for products, the choice of a long-term plan for the development of an enterprise, etc.) have always been of interest to many specialists and researchers. The list of such problems is quite extensive, but they all have the following common features:
Uniqueness, uniqueness of the situation of choice;
Difficult to assess the nature of the alternatives under consideration;
Insufficient certainty of the consequences of decisions made;
The presence of a set of heterogeneous factors that should be taken into account;
The presence of a person or group of persons responsible for making decisions.
Problems of rational choice in unique situations have always existed, but for a number of reasons, their importance has increased significantly in recent decades. First of all, the dynamism of the environment has sharply increased and the period of time when the decisions made earlier remain correct has decreased. Secondly, the development of science and technology has led to the emergence of a large number of alternative choices. Thirdly, the complexity of each of the options for making decisions has increased. Fourth, increased interdependence various solutions and their consequences. As a result of all this, the difficulties of rationally solving the problems of unique choice have increased dramatically. These problems have become much more complex, and people, leaders of organizations, meet them more and more often. In the future, we can expect an even greater variety of difficult and responsible problems of unique choice.
How are such problems usually solved? We know from history that experienced managers are distinguished by the ability to make the best use of your experience and intuition . In situations of making unique decisions, there is always a lack of information, which can only be covered by believing in one of the possible hypotheses. Experienced managers usually use all helpful tips, but they act in their own way, on the basis of their own model of the development of future events, their assessment of certain personalities. The problems of making unique decisions have always required creativity, insight, in other words, rational choice in unique situations is inherently a special art.
The purpose of the course work is the study of the functional organization of the process of making managerial decisions, as well as the consideration of the order and methods of decision-making.
1. The main stages of preparation of managerial decisions.
Management decision - this is a creative act of the subject of management, aimed at eliminating the problems that have arisen in the subject of management. Development and decision-making is a creative process in the activities of leaders. It usually includes a number of stages:
development and goal setting;
study of the problem;
selection and justification of performance criteria and possible consequences decisions made;
consideration of options for solutions;
selection and final formulation of the decision;
decision-making;
bringing decisions to the executors;
Control over the implementation of decisions.
Under management decision understand the choice of alternative; action to resolve a problem. Ultimately, the management decision is presented as the result of management activities. In a broader sense, a managerial decision is considered as the main type of managerial work, a set of interrelated, purposeful and logically consistent managerial actions that ensure the implementation of managerial tasks.
Solutions can be classified in many ways. However, the determining factor is the conditions under which the decision is made.
Decisions are usually made in an environment of certainty and risk (uncertainty). Under certainty, the manager is relatively certain of the outcome of each of the alternatives. In an environment of risk (uncertainty), the maximum that a manager can do is to determine the probability of success for each alternative.
There are other criteria for classifying management decisions:
Classification of management decisions. Tab. 1.
|
Classification criteria |
Types of management decisions |
|
by the duration of the consequences of the decision |
long term, medium term, short term |
|
by frequency of adoption |
one-time (random), recurring |
|
by breadth of coverage |
general (for all employees), highly specialized |
|
according to the form of preparation |
individual, group, collective |
|
by complexity |
simple, complex |
|
according to the rigidity of the regulation |
contour, structured, algorithmic |
2. Decision making process.
The decision-making process is complex and multilateral. It includes a number of stages and operations. Questions about how many and what stages the decision-making process should go through, what is the specific content of each of them, are controversial and are solved differently by different leaders. It depends on the qualifications of the manager, the situation, the style of leadership and the culture of the organization. It is important that each manager understands the strengths and limitations of each approach and decision-making procedure and is able to choose the best option for the situation And own management style.
The classical approach to making a managerial decision is to follow a certain procedure and perform mandatory actions (Fig. 1).
Decision making process
Formulation of the problem
Identification of limitations in the definition of alternatives
Decision-making
Solution Implementation
Formulation of the problem
Rice. 1. The constituent elements of the process of making managerial decisions.
The main tasks of management science are the study and practical application of the principles of development of the entire set of managerial relations and various forms of their manifestation in setting goals, developing plans, creating economic and organizational conditions for the effective operation of labor collectives. The study and mastery of these regularities are a necessary condition for improving the management of public and private production, improving the economic infrastructure and raising the national economy of the country.
The team is a particularly complex object of management., i.e. a group of people united on the basis of common tasks, joint actions, constant contacts. The intellectual, cultural and moral potential of the members of the team is so different that it is difficult to predict the reaction of each individual to the control action. How to maintain friendly, cordial relations in the family, how to establish and maintain mutual understanding with your colleague, how to influence the team in order to achieve the fulfillment of tasks without conflicts and stress? The principles of management as the foundation of the most complex of the arts - the arts of management do not claim to be a panacea for all occasions, but in all cases they will not leave a person without reasonable, well-thought-out recommendations by professional experts.
Management decision is a social act aimed at solving problem situations. The need for decision-making arises at all stages of the management process, is associated with various aspects of managerial work and is unthinkable without a problematic situation, i.e. a situation of uncertainty in which there are several paths and it is not entirely clear which one is preferable. In fact, management decisions are just ideas, thoughts. The goal of management is to real work real people. A successful solution is one that is efficiently and effectively implemented in practice (turned into action). The concept of "goal" is close to the concept of "task", but unlike the goal, its achievement is desirable by a certain point in time within the period for which the management decision is designed.
All management decisions can be divided into two types:
Individuals - can be purely individual (taken without consultation with employees) and sole-advisory (involving consultations with employees);
collective - are accepted on the basis of: consensus (consent) of all interested persons, compromise of all stakeholders, voting.
Management decisions can also be classified according to other criteria:
Depending on the conditions in which the decision is made - based on reliable information, risky and unreliable. Usually decisions are made either in an environment of certainty, when the manager can be more or less confident in the results of each decision, or in an environment of risk, i.e. uncertainty, when the maximum that a manager can do is to estimate the probability of success for each alternative;
· on term of action of the decision short-term, average-term and long-term;
By the frequency of adoption - one-time and recurring decisions;
By breadth of coverage - general solutions (covering all employees) and highly specialized (concerning individual divisions of the organization);
By the form of training - individual, group and collective;
by complexity - simple and complex;
by the rigidity of regulation: contour (approximately indicate the scheme of actions of subordinates and give them scope for choosing techniques and methods for implementing decisions), structured (assume strict regulation of the actions of subordinates - set the structure of actions), algorithmic (extremely strictly regulate the activities of subordinates and practically exclude their initiative , setting the algorithm of actions - a step-by-step task).
There are two main approaches to decision-making group and individual.
With a group approach, a manager of any managerial level involves staff in making decisions. This approach allows senior and middle managers to shift the solution of small daily problems to lower-level managers (getting rid of the “churn” of cases).
Within the framework of an individual approach, the centralization of decision-making, i.e. decisions are made by the highest echelon of managers (top managers).
In this regard, the set of individual features manager, depending on which he can make one of the following types of management decisions:
Balanced type decisions are characteristic of managers who start a problem with an already formulated initial idea that has arisen as a result of a preliminary analysis of the conditions; considered the most productive type;
Impulsive decisions are typical for those whose process of constructing hypotheses prevails over actions to verify and refine them, as a result of which the decision-making process occurs abruptly, bypassing the stage of substantiation and verification;
Inert solutions - after the appearance of the initial hypothesis, its refinement is extremely slow, uncertain and cautious;
risky decisions - similar to impulsive ones, but do not bypass the process of substantiating the hypothesis. The leader comes to the assessment only after the discovery of some inconsistency. Although belatedly, the elements of hypothesis building and hypothesis testing are balanced;
decisions of a cautious type are characterized by careful assessment of hypotheses, criticality, the desire to avoid errors, etc.
American management is characterized by the division of all management decisions into the following:
organizational - decisions that the head chooses from a number of alternative ones in order to fulfill the duties due to his position; they are divided into two groups: programmed, when the number of possible alternatives is limited and the choice is made within the directions given by the organization, and unprogrammed, taken in new situations; on the issue of the goals of the organization, the improvement of its structure, the creation of new products, etc.;
Intuitive - are accepted on the basis of their own intuition by a manager, as a rule, who has a long experience in managerial work;
rational - do not depend on the experience and length of service of the manager, they are based on the analysis and synthesis of all processes occurring in the organization.
Decision making process
Managers perform four management functions, so they have to deal with a constant stream of decisions for each of them.
At the heart of any decision is a problem situation. In the problem analysis phase, the task is to identify the symptoms of the problem and evaluate it. If problems are found, this means that the manager has realized the deviation from the originally established plans. To assess a problem means to establish the extent and nature of deviations.
To study the problem, tools such as the analysis of information about the internal and external environment organizations, market analysis, financial reports of the organization, invitation of consultants.
The cause of the problem may be forces outside the organization's competence, which the manager cannot influence. This kind of restriction narrows the possibilities of making an optimal decision, so it is necessary to identify the source of the restrictions and identify alternatives.
Process steps. The decision-making process is complex and multifaceted, so the questions of how many and what stages the decision-making process should go through and what the specific content of each of them, each manager decides in his own way, depending on his qualifications, situation, leadership style and culture of the organization. The adoption of any managerial decision requires certain costs, so it is necessary to establish whether it is necessary to make a decision or whether advice, wishes, etc. can be dispensed with.
The decision process can be viewed as the execution of an interrelated set of steps and sub-steps of the decision process:
1) collecting information about possible problems:
Watching internal environment organizations;
Surveillance of the external environment;
2) identification and determination of the causes of the problem: o description of the problem situation;
Identification of the organizational link where the problem arose;
Formulation of the problem;
Assessment of its importance;
Identification of the causes of the problem;
3) formulating the goals of solving the problem:
Determination of the goals of the organization;
Formulating goals for solving the problem;
4) substantiation of the strategy for solving the problem:
Detailed description of the object;
Determination of the area of change of variable factors;
Definition of requirements for the solution;
Definition of criteria for the effectiveness of the solution;
Definition of restrictions;
5) development of solutions:
Dividing a task into subtasks;
Searching for solution ideas for each subtask;
Model building and calculations;
Determination of possible solutions for each subtask and subsystem;
Summarizing the results for each subtask;
Forecasting the consequences of the decision for each subtask;
Development of options for solving the entire problem;
6) choosing the best option:
Analysis of the effectiveness of solution options;
Assessment of the influence of uncontrolled parameters;
7) correction and approval of the decision;
Working out the solution with the performers;
Coordination of the solution with functionally interacting services;
Approval of the decision;
8) implementation of the solution:
Preparation of a work plan for implementation;
Its implementation;
Making changes to the solution during implementation;
Evaluation of the effectiveness of the adopted and implemented solutions.
Control over the execution of a management decision is a form of feedback through which the manager receives information about the execution of the decision and the achievement of the organization's goals.
With the help of control, not only deviations from the tasks formulated in the decisions are revealed, but the following functions are also carried out:
diagnostic - gives an idea of the state of the organization;
orienting - is manifested in the fact that those issues that are more often controlled by the leader acquire special significance in the minds of the performers, and they direct their efforts primarily to their solution;
stimulating - aimed at involving in the labor process all unused reserves;
corrective - focused on clarifications that are made to the decision based on control materials;
Pedagogical - encourages performers to conscientious work.
Decision-making methods. There are three groups of such methods - informal, collective, quantitative.
Informal, or heuristic, methods - a set of techniques and methods for choosing the best decisions by the manager, a theoretical comparison of alternatives, taking into account the accumulated experience. Informal methods are based mainly on intuition. Their advantages are that they are taken quickly, but intuition can fail, so these methods do not insure against choosing the wrong decision.
Collective methods of discussion and decision-making are associated with determining the circle of persons who will participate in this procedure. The main criterion for the formation of such a group is competence, the ability to solve creative problems, constructive thinking, and communication skills. Most often in such a temporary team ( working group) includes employees of various departments. Group work is carried out in such collective forms as a meeting, a meeting, a discussion in a committee, etc.
The most common methods of collective preparation of a management decision are:
Brainstorming - joint generation of common ideas and their subsequent adoption;
The Delphi method is a multi-round questionnaire procedure, when after each round the received personal data are finalized and the results are reported to the experts indicating the location of the assessments. In the 1st round of the survey, no argumentation is required, and in the 2nd round, an answer that differs from the others is either subject to argumentation, or the expert can change the assessment. After the assessments stabilize, the survey is terminated and the decision proposed by the experts or the corrected decision is adopted;
The method of the Japanese decision-making system is a ring system, the essence of which is as follows: a project is prepared for consideration by the head, which is submitted for discussion to persons according to the list provided by the head. Everyone should review the proposed solution and comment in writing. Then a meeting is held with the participation of those whose opinion is not entirely clear.
Experts choose a decision in accordance with individual preferences, and if they do not match, then a vector of preferences still arises, which are determined on the basis of either a majority of votes or the "principle of dictators", when the opinion of one person, usually a senior in position, is taken as the basis , or the Cournu principle, which is used in cases where all solutions are different, so there is a solution that would meet the requirement of individual rationality without infringing the interests of each expert.
Quantitative methods are based on a scientific and practical approach that involves the choice of optimal solutions by processing large amounts of information ( mathematical method); linear modeling, probabilistic and statistical models, game theory, simulation models, etc. are used.
Solution efficiency. Decision principles
The effectiveness of the organization depends on the quality of the management decision. The wrong decision can not only shake the organization, but ruin it. Therefore, the adoption of managerial decisions imposes great responsibility on the person making the decision.
The effectiveness of management decisions is achieved when the following principles are followed:
Hierarchy in decision-making - delegation of decision-making authority closer to the level at which there is more necessary information and which is directly involved in the implementation of the decision;
The use of direct horizontal connections - the collection and processing of information should be carried out without recourse to higher management, which contributes to decision-making in more short time and increased accountability for its implementation;
centralization of leadership - the decision-making process should be in the hands of the leader; o compliance with the goals of the organization - the solution should most fully ensure the achievement of the goals; about the timeliness of the decision, its validity, realism (compliance with the forces and means of the team performing it), economy (achieving the goal at the lowest cost).
Methods of bringing the decisions made to the executors play a special role in the effectiveness of decisions. For this purpose, the decision is divided into group and individual tasks, and the selection of performers is carried out.
It is believed that there are four main reasons for non-compliance with decisions:
The decision is not clearly formulated;
the decision is clearly formulated, but the performer did not understand it;
the decision is clearly formulated, the performer understood it, but he did not have the required conditions and means for its implementation;
All this was, but the performer did not have internal agreement with the solution proposed by the manager.
Thus, the effectiveness of a managerial decision depends not only on its optimality, but on the form of bringing it to the executor (order, persuasion, etc.).
Most management decisions have both positive and negative consequences. Effective management is always a skillful balancing act, which involves losses when they are necessary to achieve the main goal. So, the manager practically cannot select only the most capable, most experienced specialists for work in the organization and cannot always treat employees the way they want.
Thus, perhaps the single most important reason for the success of McDonald's restaurants is such a precise process for the production of hamburgers and french fries that can be implemented with consistent quality, even using low-skilled workers. This means that managers of McDonald's restaurants must be sure that each employee will accurately perform all the prescribed technology. That's why McDonald's hires young, inexperienced people: they are better suited to the assembly line method than those with experience in restaurants. But there are also negative consequences of this approach - high staff turnover, the risk of missing out on talented workers who can become good leaders able to climb the hierarchical ladder to the very top. However, if we evaluate the situation as a whole, it can be argued that the positive effects outweigh the negative ones.
Modeling in management
Management science has developed many concepts of managerial decision making. There are models and methods for making decisions in various areas of activity - the inventory management model, the "decision tree", etc.
Speaking about management models, Japanese and American management models are usually highlighted.
The Japanese management model was able to creatively rethink on the basis of its national traditions Foreign experience accumulated in the field of organization and management. It was this system that was recognized worldwide as the most effective. The secret of her success is that she focuses on working with people.
Consider the features of the Japanese management model.
Japan, which is poor in natural resources, has long been oriented towards the production of high-quality products at low costs, remembering that “our wealth is human resources”, which must be adequately taken care of.
In Japanese management, the American idea of management immediately took root: an employee should work all his life in one company. Employees work for a long time in one company, because when they move to another company, they lose their seniority, benefits, pensions, they will face low wages; "defectors" are generally considered second-class people. Those who work in one place for a long time are charged wages according to the indicators of seniority and labor results. Large Japanese corporations provide employees with many benefits - allowances for family support, payment for travel to the place of work, medical care, payments for social needs.
The philosophy of the Japanese management model is “We are all one family”, so Japanese managers consider it most important to establish normal relations with employees. At SONY, 75-85% of the surveyed employees consider themselves to be a single team whose joint actions bring success to all its members. The Japanese are convinced that you can change anything in your life, but you can not change the company, which is called "uchi" - "home", "family". A Japanese worker, when asked about his profession, will always name the company in which he works.
The staff of any Japanese company begins their day by exercising and singing the anthem of their company, then all employees (regardless of position) recite the commandments of the company, dedicated, as a rule, to hard and conscientious work, obedience, diligence, modesty, and gratitude. The founding day of the company is celebrated every year.
In order to further strengthen the self-identification of the worker with his company, the Japanese management system practices and encourages overtime work, the frequent absence of days off, and the incomplete use of paid holidays. Such behavior demonstrates the devotion of the employee to his company.
Japanese managers promptly respond to employee complaints, are present at the production site every day, talk with workers and specialists about how to improve economic indicators, are interested in the well-being of employees (the patient does not work well).
There are no rank or class privileges in the Japanese system. So, SONY managers are dressed in the same blue jackets as the workers; it is the managers who are the first to reduce wages during a downturn in production.
All employees of the company are constantly together - in a large open room without partitions, where there is a simple and most necessary furniture. This single "office" is designed to once again remind the employees of the company that they are working to achieve common success.
Material incentives of various kinds (especially social ones) bind the employee to his company even more strongly. The employee knows that his personal well-being depends on his usefulness to the group to which he belongs, and therefore on the performance of his company. As a result, high intensity and productivity of labor and an almost complete absence of staff turnover. Moral stimulation is also characteristic: promotion; awarding prizes, valuable gifts; issuance of copyright certificates; holding special meetings at which the valuable activity of the employee is noted; providing incentives for the purchase of company shares; payment for trips in the organization of the customer (including abroad); publication of special articles in an intra-company publication; organization of out-of-town trips for employees with families at the expense of the company; organization of joint lunches for employees with the company's management; specially designated parking spaces, etc.
In Japanese companies, 45% of employees are hired on the recommendation of a relative, acquaintance, etc. The recommender is responsible for the recommended. Japanese management widely practices the creation of working dynasties. First of all, employees with such qualities as honesty, decency, modesty and diligence are promoted.
Further training of an employee is carried out on the job, at the workplace. Employees of Japanese companies improve their theoretical education in training centers and seminars (in particular, in the USA).
As a result, Japan is the most competitive country in the world, which at the same time occupies a leading position in ensuring literacy, social policy, and quality of life.
The American management model is gradually losing its leading position in the world and is beginning to acquire certain features of the Japanese model.
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