In: Operations Management
What role does intuition play in decision making? What role does quantitative data play in decision making? Identify a decision situation in which you used both intuition and data for your analysis of the situation
Intuition is based on the understanding and experience which a person has gained over the years. It helps in developing a gut feeling or an instinct which helps in making the decisions. Many times intuition is extremely important since it emotionally attaches a person to the work or the project. The emotional attachment leads to hard work which is extremely important for the project to be a success.
On the other hand, the data acts as a reference point since various trends and analysis can be figured out. However, these trends or reference either belong to the past, or are projections to the future. Hence they cannot be completely relied upon. There are high chances that only a probable amount of predictions through data comes true.
Therefore it is extremely important to have both a mixture of data and intuition while taking decisions. The decision that I took which included both was when I went to a college for campus placement. I went to that college since the past data of the college showed excellent performance, however for an accounting role I selected an engineer since my intuition said that he will do good in it.