My Own Writing
Decisions are points along a path to a goal.
Types of decisions:
- Binary. Only two options from which to choose: yes or no, this or that.
- Option Selection. More than two options. Often many more, and all are not initially known and may not be knowable.
Four things are needed for option selection decisions:
- Options (ideally, a complete set)
- Attributes (variables)
- Weighting Factors (i.e. how important is each attribute to you)
- Scores on attributes
The option evaluation phase of decision making is inherently frustrating because it is time-consuming, marked by uncertainty, hard to estimate its endpoint, and often shows very little visible progress.
One thing that makes decisions difficult is attribute weighting. How important is this feature? How much is it worth to me? How much should I pay for it?
It’s important to distinguish the goodness of a decision from the goodness of an outcome. Sometimes a good decision can have a bad outcome, and vice versa. Just because there was a bad outcome doesn’t necessarily mean there was a bad decision.
Earlier decisions constrain later decisions.
Common Decisions
- How will I invest my money?
- What car will I buy
- What route will I drive?
Anything that reduces complexity is good.
To make certain kinds of decisions, you need summaries.
More choices are not necessarily better choices.