{"id":174,"date":"2018-01-23T14:04:05","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T19:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/?p=174"},"modified":"2018-01-23T14:04:05","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T19:04:05","slug":"the-five-key-decision-making-steps-that-improve-process-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/2018\/01\/23\/the-five-key-decision-making-steps-that-improve-process-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Five Key Decision Making Steps that Improve Process Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firms rely heavily on processes as \u201cno service can be provided and no product can be made without a process, and no process can exist without at least one service or product.\u201d Process strategy specifies the pattern of decisions that are made in various managing processes so that the process will ultimately achieve the company\u2019s competitive priorities. Process strategy is further guided by operations strategy and the organization\u2019s ability to obtain the resources necessary to support them and have an effective design process. Firms face four major process decisions that serve as the building blocks that eventually form the firm\u2019s supply chain. These four processes are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Process Structure:<\/strong> determines the process type relative to the kinds of resources that are needed, how resources are partitioned between them, and their key characteristics.<\/li>\n
  2. Customer Involvement:<\/strong> reflects the ways in which customers become part of the process and the extent of their participation.<\/li>\n
  3. Resource Flexibility:<\/strong> the ease with which employees and equipment can handle a wide variety of products, output levels, duties, and functions.<\/li>\n
  4. Capital Intensity:<\/strong> the mix of equipment and human skills in a process; the greater the cost of equipment relative to the cost of labor, the greater the capital intensity is.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    Last semester I took Professor Coughlan\u2019s Ethical, Social, and Legal Responsibilities of Business class. Much of this course was centered around decision making, the rational decision making steps, and the notion that an individual\u2019s thoroughness in following the decision making process can result in a variety of outcomes. In our course, five key decision making steps were identified that enable both firms and individuals to make thorough, well thought out, and rational decisions if they are followed correctly.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Identify the decision opportunity.<\/li>\n
    2. Conduct a search for alternatives.<\/li>\n
    3. Establish the decision criteria.<\/li>\n
    4. Compares alternatives based on the criteria selected.<\/li>\n
    5. Render choice based on the highest scoring option.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      There are two important things to note about these steps. If a search for alternatives is not conducted and this step is not completed (step number two), then inadequate decisions are made as a result. Additionally, the third step, establish the decision criteria, can also serve as the first step of the decision making process and will guide the decision opportunity.<\/p>\n

      If the decision making process is thorough and the outcomes of the decision are excellent, then this outcome was expected. Further, if the decision making process is incomplete and the five rational decision making steps were not followed, then the poor outcome that resulted was expected.<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      The five decision making steps that were discussed in my Ethical, Social, and Legal Responsibilities of Business course can be employed by managers as they make decisions surrounding process strategy and process decisions such as process structure, customer involvement, resource flexibility, and capital intensity. The use of these steps will result in deliberate, thoughtful, and rational decisions.<\/p>\n

      Do you agree with the five rational decision making steps listed above? Do you ever make shortcuts? What steps do you take when you are making a big decision?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Firms rely heavily on processes as \u201cno service can be provided and no product can be made without a process,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3735,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[71160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-making-decisions-defining-process-strategy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mgmt340-05\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}