We make decisions every day. These decisions come to define our life and some of them may have a profound effect on the journey we take. However, making decisions is not an easy task and sometimes you may find yourself pondering on alternative courses of actions for hours, days or even months.

The recent increase in the complexity of our lives, both personal and professional, has made decision making even more critical and time consuming. Fortunately, we have also progressed significantly on decision making tools and now have a comprehensive toolbox, established philosophies and guidelines to use which can make decision making process easier than ever before.

This course teaches a series of proven techniques that simply help you to decide. Broadly the course can be divided into three sections:

1. What actions can you take and how to choose the best one?
2. Is the action you are about to take going to improve the situation?
3. How to make optimal decisions as a group?

For each part, a series of techniques are provided, each suitable for a different problem. Each technique is described briefly and is then followed by an example fully describing the technique. Research shows, that delegates always learn better with an example and this course takes full advantage of this fact. Next, after each example, delegates participate in an exercise to learn that specific technique with a hands-on experience which helps them to understand and remember the technique even better.

A series of important philosophical principles are also presented in this course. These concepts help to raise the awareness of delegates on the impact of their decisions on others, how personal benefit may not always be to their best interest and so on.

In this highly practical course delegates will learn:

What is Decision Making?

• What are the characteristics of a good and bad decision maker?
• How much analysis do you need to do?
• What is involved in decision making process?

How to Choose Actions

• How to choose between a set of options where each has its own advantages and disadvantages
• How to make a quantifiable comparison between alternative options
• How to systematically compare related options
• How to systematically compare unrelated options

How to Analyse the Impact of Your Actions

• How to use a measure to compare pros and cons
• How to carry out a force field analysis
• How to compare the benefits versus the costs of taking different options
• How to systematically analyse a cascade of decisions where one leads to another
• How to visualise your decision making process
• What tools can you use to increase your creativity when making decisions so you can come up with more options?

How to Decide in Groups

• What are the implications of deciding in groups?
• Why thinking in groups can sometimes be so frustrating?
• What can you do to increase the efficiency of your meetings?
• How to prevent dominant people from take over the meeting or the decision making process
• How to encourage newcomers or those who are shy to present their views without fear of criticism
• What tools can you use to streamline the process of group decision making?
• How to avoid groupthink, where participants are so eager to reach a decision without causing conflicts that they end up choosing a wrong solution

What are the Principles of Decision Making?

• Do you always have to make sure you get a better bargain than others?
• What are the philosophical implications of complexity when making decisions?
• What is the best way to plan your course of action and what principles you need to be aware of?
• What can you learn from game theory when making decisions?