Question

6. Describe a situation in which having access to large amounts of information had a negative impact on your decision making.

7. Describe a situation in which having access to large amounts of information had a positive impact on your decision making.

8. Describe the general model of problem solving presented in the text. What are the three main phases and the different analysis steps involved?

Answer 1

6. Having access to large amount of information may sometimes have negative impact on decision making. Suppose, a manager of a company has to make a decision for his company to increase its sales and does reasearch. He now has an access information about different marketing strategies which in time starts to confuse him as he does not understand which one would be the best choice. This access information has made selection of a strategy difficult and hence, created a negative impact as due to information overload the manager might end up making some poor decisions.

7. Positive impact of having large amount of information-
Suppose, a consumer wants to buy a new smartphone within a specific price range, he/she has collected every single information regarding all the smartphone companies and their products. Having an access of large amount of information has helped this person to choose the best phone with the desired specifications, all within the specified budget. So, in this case having access to too much information has helped the person in making an optimum decision.

8. The general model of problem solving method uses statistical datas to analyse the problems associated with decision making. It incorporates necessary skills and step by step strategies to come up with the desired outcome.
The three main phases and the different analysis steps involved are-

• Identification - The first step includes the identification of the problem, and then defining it. It is an important step as it helps us in understanding the main areas of problem.
• Planning - Next step after identifiation would be to analyse the affects of the problem and plan strategies to combat the it.
• Implementation - In the last step, the strategies are put into action. In this step the plans are finally executed.