Most important decisions have multiple objectives and uncertainties about the consequences of the alternatives. The task of trying to balance the various pros and cons of different potential alternatives is very challenging. Working with clients, we construct a model of the decision-makers’ values to logically and consistently evaluate their alternatives. This provides insights about which of the alternatives are better, how much better than others, and the reasons why. Subsequently, the decision-maker can readily eliminate the now-recognized inferior alternatives and make an informed choice among the good contenders.
Consulting Expertise in decision sciences, risk management, and operations research
Technology
Finance
Management strategy
Identifying and structuring organizational objectives
Enterprise risk management
Management education in decision-making
and risk assessment
Energy policy
Environmental management
Global warming and climate change
Water resource planning
Pollution control
National infrastructure
Nuclear waste disposal
Healthcare
Facilities location
Emergency preparedness
Utility reliability
Wastewater planning
Egress from skyscrapers
Liquid natural gas risks
Social issues
Homeland security
Stakeholder involvement
Decision support for legal cases
Preservation management
Resource allocation
Ralph is skilled in the useful application of the decision sciences to real-world issues to aid decision-makers and policymakers. He works with businesses, organizations, institutions, and government agencies to address complex decisions. These issues include:
- Defining the right decisions to be addressed
- Guiding processes to create innovative alternatives for decisions
- Assessing the probabilities of the occurrence of key future events that greatly influence the consequences of a current decision
- Proactively recognizing decision opportunities to improve performance and avoid future decision problems
- Articulating and organizing the strategic objectives of any decision making entity
- Identifying the objectives for a decision, including those with many participants or stakeholders
- Clarifying the relative importance (i.e. the value tradeoffs) of the different objectives for a decision involving multiple objectives
- Performing a complete analysis of a complex decision to provide insight for making a sound choice
- Guiding a logical process to help a group of individuals make an informed decision
Spend some time clarifying values to identify what is important about a decision. By clearly understanding values, more alternatives can be created and developed consistent with what an individual or an organization is trying to achieve.
The only purposeful way to influence anything in life is by making and implementing decisions.
I believe that the ability to identify, frame and target the right problem is essential to good decision-making.
Decision Science combines knowledge about values, judgment, and intuition with systematic, analytical thinking to provide insights about the decisions to be made.
Analysis provides an important complement to intuitions and feelings, both are relevant.
Decision science used in analyzing complex decisions provides useful insights. Without an analysis, such insights could not be recognized with unaided thinking, and subsequent decisions would be based on only intentions and feelings.
A key issue is to understand the values of relevant stakeholders. Early involvement with stakeholders to identify their values significantly improves the decision- making process and the quality of the alternative eventually chosen.
Any analysis of the alternatives for a decision requires value judgments. A model incorporating these value judgments is particularly useful for complex decisions.
Thoughtful and clear analysis can provide useful insights to help policy makers make better policy decisions.
