“Who needs to make decisions?”

“Why do I need training in decision making?”

“Is the training for individuals or for groups?”

“Can decision making be ‘taught’?”

“What is decision making training?”

“What types of decision will the program handle?”

“How long does the training take?”

“Can I teach myself?”

“Is there a record of the decision making process at the end?”

“Can I alter the data after completion?”

“Is there any ‘Help’ within the program?”

“My boss/wife/husband/religious leader/group leader does not want me to make decisions. What can I do?”

“What are the minimum system requirements to run Udecide?”

“Who needs to make decisions?”  

We all do! Life is a series of decisions, some more important than others.

“Why do I need training in decision making?”

The answer is, “Maybe you don’t!” Maybe you are a special person or a special group of people that always comes to the ‘right’ decision about everything. Most people, though, even the most highly educated, do not always follow sensible procedures when making decisions. If you have ever had to work in a group and come to a consensus you will know what that means. Politicians in particular follow agendas that often preclude good decision making.

“Is the training for individuals or for groups?”

The training is for both individuals and groups. In groups there will be conflicting views on the importance of the various factors that affect the decision, leading to interesting – and often heated!-debates.

“Can decision making be ‘taught’?”

Yes it can, and is in certain institutions. There are few people who do not benefit to some degree from formal training.

“What is decision making training?”

It is study carried out individually or in classes into the choices in life and the factors that affect decisions.

One of the most common decisions in life is buying a car. This can be an individual, a family (group) or a company decision. There are many ways to make this decision, including:

1. “I have £20000. I like that one. I’ll take it.”
2. “You will have this one because I say so.”
3. “I have up to £20000 to spend. What type of car should I buy?”

The third requires the setting down of some factors that affect the purchase: How many seats? How fast? How economical? Etc. These factors will vary from individual to individual and from group to group. Within the group there will be different emphasis on each factor. The ‘perfect’ car might not exist at the required cost, so its features need to be rated so that it can be compared with others in the price range. Defining requirements clearly is obviously the key to good decision making.

The Udecide program enables this type of problem to be defined quickly and clearly, allows each factor to be discussed and rated and each potential solution to be rated for each factor. In this way a ‘winner’ is determined (or a set of winners: the solution is not always clear cut!)

N.B. The process is more important than the mathematical solution.

The Udecide program will, when conscientiously used, produce the ‘best decision’ from a choice of up to twelve potential solutions but what should stay in the mind is the process.

“What types of decision will the program handle?”

The Udecide program will handle almost any decision where there are up to twelve choices with up to twelve “must-have” factors and up to twelve “adverse consequences”. There are several examples of varying complexity delivered with the program. (See Examples)

The program is NOT designed to solve very advanced mathematical problems! There are several existing programs available that use ‘Monte-Carlo’ analysis and handle choices as ‘linked possibilities’. These systems are suitable for graduates/researchers/professionals/system designers and do not aid the ‘decision making process’. I.e. they are used by advanced decision makers when a problem is well defined but the answers are obscure or difficult to compute.

If you do not know what all that means you are probably in the right place!

“How long does the training take?”

This is obviously dependent on the knowledge and education level of the student. An 8 or 9 year old might need several sessions of two hours and a few will struggle with the concepts. They would need to be led by a teacher. A teacher should be able to use the program to good effect in less than a day and possibly even a couple of hours, as should anyone with a reasonable education.

“Can I teach myself?”

You can. There are several examples so it should only take a short time to understand the concepts. Putting them into practise on a real problem might take longer depending on the complexity of the problem. In our experience, if you have the relevant information to hand it rarely takes more than a couple of hours to reach a decision.

“Is there a record of the decision making process at the end?”

The Udecide program produces comprehensive reports showing how you came to the decision. These can be analysed to make sure you followed the correct procedures and used ‘sensible’ data. The reports can be exported to MS Word©. Reports can be produced at each of the ten steps, which is useful if the program is to be used in separate sessions. The final report at Step 10 shows the results of the exercise. Those at Steps 3,5,7,8,9 show the stages along the path to the final result.

“Can I alter the data after completion?”

The data can be altered at any time: for instance a factor can be changed after the decision has been made, in which case a new decision will be made and a new report produced.

“Is there any ‘Help’ within the program?”

Leave the cursor hovering over an instruction or data entry position to reveal brief instructions. Click the ‘F1’ key for context-sensitive help. Click ‘Help’ for more in depth assistance. If all else fails, send us an email…

“My boss/spouse/religious leader/group leader does not want me to make decisions. What can I do?”

That’s life! Show them the logic of your argument. You will often be pleasantly surprised at the result. Be wary of anyone that discourages input from others and who appears to ‘know it all’. They rarely do.

“What are the minimum system requirements to run Udecide?”