Now, let's define what we mean by collective decision making. In this course, we are taking a proto look at decision making, and we are evaluating it from a process perspective. Typically, when we take decisions, we might fall into one or another situation. For those of us who are more action oriented, we might want to take tough decision and just go to action. However, this means that sometimes we might arrive at suboptimal solutions. Others who are more analytical might fall into a completely different pattern, waiting and waiting and analyzing the situations for weeks and never taking an actionable decision.
What we want to achieve with this course To enable you to think about the decision making process and the process to gain awareness of the steps it takes, so that no matter in what situations you are either in a crisis, or in a situation where you have enough time to take a decision, you can actually control the process and take the necessary steps and take the time to look into the problem as the information that you have, and take a really good high quality decision. In order to do that, we need to go through several steps. Usually, we have a problem that we need to solve. And the first step in our process is to understand what kind of problem we have at hand. We might need to frame it, then go out. Look for information.
For the root causes of the problem, then come back and reframe it. Just to make sure that we understand it well. In the next step, we might need to look for specific criteria that will help us evaluate the options that we have for a good decision. The options themselves, we also need to take into account Usually, we need to have at least two or three options in order to make sure that we are evaluating different alternatives and finding the best solution to the problem we have identified. And finally, if we have gone through all these steps, we are pretty confident that the decision we are taking based on available information based on a well defined problem based on objective criteria for making decision is a high quality decision, then all it's left is just to act to it. So, let's recap what we have discussed in this section.
The first thing that is important to remember for decision making is that we always have a problem that we need to solve. So we need to make sure that we understand the problem and we are looking for the best solution to solve it. The second thing is that decision making is a structured and analytical process. And finally, especially when we are talking about collaborative decision making, it is made in a team and we need to make sure that we engage and empower this team to take the decision. Finally, what remains is just to act