Question

Your paper should be a minimum of 450 words.

Describe and analyze three decisions you made over the last six months. Which of these were programmed and which nonprogrammed? Why do you believe each decision is programmed or nonprogrammed? One of your decisions included in this paper must be non-programmed.

For each decision please give specifics and why you believe the decision is programmed or non-programmed.

Answer 1

A programmed decision is one where we use past experience to take the next step, while non-programmed decisions are more unique and specific to the situation. One decision that I would like to share is the one where I had to buy my car and the decision process I went through. It would come under programmed decision as I was completely assisted by past experiences from my boyfriend who had the same history of exploring different options. The model that describes this decision would be the “classical” model as the information is available. The other decision I would like to share is the one where I had to take a decision on my future after my bachelor’s degree. The final decision was to pursue further studies in the USA but this decision is more of a non-programmed nature and it is very specific based on the situation. The third decision that I would like to share would be that of choosing Rich land College as my destination.

A programmed decision involves a situation that has occurred often enough so that students can use past experience and similar decision rules over and over again. Programmed decisions are considered routine.

E.g: build a timetable; choose a major field of study after taking aptitude tests, going to the academic counselor, joining several study conferences and investigating career choices.

Nonprogrammed decisions are made in response to novel, unique, and largely unstructured decision situations. The nonprogrammed decision requires the student to search for possible alternatives and information and to make a decision that has not been made previously.

E.g: find a parking place when you came to school late and there wasn’t any available parking lot nearby. The administrative model best describes the approach (choose a major study field).

a) There are human and environmental limitations that affect the decision to a certain degree(bounded rationality); unable to make economically rational decisions even if I want to: do not have enough time and cognitive ability to process complete information => must satisfice: choose the first solution

b) Goals are vague and must rely greatly on assumptions : although having received advice, I still cannot assure that the decision is perfectly correct as the people that offer me advises differ from me in the way of thinking, habits, interests,…

c) Intuition: the decision is based on hands-on experience.

Like many small-business owners, you probably view time as your most valuable commodity. And what you wouldn't do for more of it. Until a genie appears at your door with a magic lantern, you can free up more time in your day by learning to delegate programmed decisions to middle- and lower-level managers, while you handle the thornier unprogrammed decisions that require more creativity and strategic thinking. Technically, this management technique contains no magic, even though it may feel this way.

Programmed Decisions Are Rote

Programmed decisions are those you've encountered many times before and so know how to handle with ease. They often involve routine, straightforward matters that are addressed in your company's rules and procedures manual. By now, these are so familiar that you may know them by heart, too.

Programmed decisions also may share other characteristics:

• They are often structured and automated (or capable of being automated). They tend to have successful outcomes, because of their rote nature. Once they're made the first time, they set the bar for formulating new rules and procedures that should be simple for others to follow.

Programmed Decisions Should Seem Familiar

You don't have to run a small business for long before you're confronted with programmed decisions such as:

• Reordering office supplies.* Dealing with time off and vacation requests from employees.
• Addressing power outages and service interruptions to your customers.

Unprogrammed Decisions Are Thornier

No one ever said that programmed decisions aren't time-consuming. They can be. And the fact that you're considering delegating some business decisions to your colleagues suggests that you already know how you can spend an entire day moving from one programmed decision to another.

It's not necessarily the time element that makes unprogrammed decisions different; it's their quality since they often:

• Defy easy answers, involving nuances and complexities. You won't find the answer in the rules and procedures manual. Contain an element of novelty that may give you pause and say, Not so fast. Require evaluation, brainstorming, contemplation and, perhaps, some trial and error.

Unprogrammed Decisions Break the Mold

As your business grows, you hire new employees and gain new customers, so it stands to reason that the number of unprogrammed decisions you encounter will grow exponentially. These decisions often involve personal, strategic or crisis situations – the type you know in your gut that you had better get right or the consequences will reverberate through your business. Perhaps you've already seen some of them in the form of:

• Altering your marketing plan to address a new market niche. Dealing with a competitor who is chipping away at your customer base by seemingly copying some of your best tactics. Confronting a threatened work strike from one of your vendors.* Addressing a customer complaint on social media (although for some small-business owners, this occurrence is happening with such regularity that it is moving into the programmed decision category).

Make a Smart Executive Decision

You may be thinking of a similar problem in your business that traverses both categories. But you should be able to place every decision you face into one of the two categories – if you think of programmed decisions as involving structured problems – and unprogrammed decisions as involving unstructured problems. Put another way, unprogrammed decisions do not require creativity and innovation because they involve routine problems.

Vesting your middle- and lower-level managers with the authority to make programmed decisions will do more than free your time; it will empower them (and will flatter them) and will also help them grow in the roles.

They may never say it out loud, but your employees and customers need your creative thinking and problem-solving skills. They need your ingenuity. And they need the leadership that flows from unprogrammed decisions. It's not magic; a genie might say that it's just good business.