Making Robust Decisions: Decision Management For Technical, Business, & Service Teams (Paperback)

~ David G. Ullman (Author)
Key Phrases: belief map, strategic leverage, evaporating cloud, Level of Criterion Satisfaction, Level of Certainty, Commercial Success (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

How do you approach difficult decisions? Decision making is an integral part of business and technology, as well as almost every other facet of life. Now there is a uniquely practical book that can help you tackle your next decision with confidence.

In Making Robust Decisions: Decision Management for Business, Service, and Technical Teams, you will learn: why decision making can be so difficult; how to address the challenges that uncertain, conflicting, incomplete, or evolving information present; and how to achieve robust decisions despite the varied personalities and perspectives on your team.

Combining more than ten years of study of decision support, cognitive psychology, product development, and business management with modern Artificial Intelligence concepts, Making Robust Decisions gives you the tools you need to produce optimal decisions—those that make good use of available information, achieve buy-in from all parties, and yield the best possible results.

Packed with practical examples and case studies, Making Robust Decisions strikes a middle ground between self-help books that, while interesting in theory, may not help with real-world problems and highly technical analysis texts. It provides some methods you can implement right away and others that you and your organization can grow into. It is readable, useful, and readily applicable to a wide variety of decision-making problems.

The methods introduced in Making Robust Decisions can help with such varied issues as selecting a concept, managing a portfolio, choosing a vendor, evaluating a proposal, selecting from architecture options, choosing a design, and determining whether to make or buy an item. They support military selection of the best course of action (COA), Analysis of Alternatives (AoA), and homeland security strategies.

Making Robust Decisions includes chapters on making estimates, working with decision teams, framing problems, the influence of belief, and using AccordÔ decision-making software to support robust decisions. It includes decision-making templates and demonstrates how the methods described support Design for Six Sigma practitioners and provide help in un-sticking the OODA Loop. If you’re in the business of making difficult decisions while managing uncertainty, risk, and team conflict, then discover the new, effective techniques presented in Making Robust Decisions.

About the Author

Dr. David G. Ullman is an active product designer. He has taught, researched, and written about design and decision making for over twenty years. He is the founder of Robust Decisions, Inc. and co-designer of Accord decision-making software. His text, The Mechanical Design Process (3rd edition, McGraw Hill, 2003), is used at many universities. He has published more than twenty papers on the mechanical product design process and decision making. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering.

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing (December 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 142510956X
• ISBN-13: 978-1425109561
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #845,624 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good overview of decision-making, December 27, 2006

By	James Taylor "Enterprise Decision Management ... (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"A robust decision is the best possible choice, one found by eliminating all the uncertainty possible within available resources, and then choosing with known and acceptable levels of satisfaction and risk"

The book is a discussion of the challenges of making complex decisions, especially those with alternatives and uncertainty, and a methodology/software platform for approaching these kinds of decisions. It's a quick read with some great advice for anyone trying to make decisions, even if they don't want to adopt a more formal methodology. The sections on uncertainty, weighting of criteria and belief maps were particularly interesting.
The book has some nice discussions of various decision-making processes. The discussion of the impact of not deciding (management by wringing of hands) is well covered, David noting that in business the competition keeps taking action and you keep using resources without adding the value a decision would add. In other words, getting stuck at the decision point can have severe, even grave consequences. He also discussed briefly how a well defined decision process can help you benefit from the wisdom of crowds in that groups of estimates are better than single ones.

5.0 out of 5 stars Decisions Made Easy, August 31, 2007

By	Norman L. Jesch "NLJesch" (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've had an opportunity to use the online software offered by the author. The book outlines and describes in detail what requirements are necessary to Make Robust Decisions. It's not perfect, but nothing ever is. This book is great reading for those that need to make difficult decisions or predictions on projects, or other management related decisions that are unknown. I've already recommended this book to several people based on their attempts in making decisions that were difficult. Hopefully they're as impressed with the outcomes as I have been.

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be required reading for project managers, January 21, 2007

By	Dr. William Hall "Bill" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I encountered Ullman's work through his interest in the late Col. John Boyd's work with the OODA loop cycle (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act). In any competitive environment, whether between individuals or between organizations, those who can make effective decisions in the least time will end up dominating the strategic landscape. Delay and dithering in making decisions can be even worse than making bad decisions. At least making a bad decision will let you go on to making the next decision. In the corporate environment, many decisions are delayed in iterated observing and orienting because of fears over uncertainty surrounding the decision. Ullman writes that many times the "OODA Loop has been reduced to the stuttering sound of "OO-OO-OO" - leading to a decision by running out of time or a command decision by a superior who has less knowledge than those supposed to make the decision. Aside from taking too long, such forced decisions are often weak and lead to failures. Ullman is concerned to help readers make "robust" decisions - those that achieve successful results and survive the test of time.

Ullman brings his long background as a design and systems engineer, and professor of mechanical design to explain his methodology for making successful decisions - especially when confronted with divergent team beliefs, incomplete knowledge, uncertainty, limited time, and risk. He starts with simple principles and examples and progressively builds depth and power into the methodology as he analyses the limitations of each previous chapter's methodology.

Making Robust Decisions is based on a major reworking and extension of an earlier book - 12 Steps to Robust Decisions: Building Consensus in Product Development and Business. The present book clearly benefits from the long process of thinking and rethinking. His writing is clear, crisp, crisp, and above all, practical.

The complete methodology as described is difficult to remember and apply in its full detail. However, it is implemented and made easy to use in the Accord software application that Ullman has developed.

I am recommending that all decision makers in my own organization study the book and keep it for continuing reference. With no more than the book in hand as a reminder, my organization could have substantially improved on many of our past decisions. It should be required reading for all project managers.