This course focuses on improving decision-making skills. Students will identify traps that lie in wait for the unwary, and use tools and techniques to avoid these traps and make effective decisions. Students will investigate a wide range of related topics including:
- Consequences, preferences, and tradeoffs
- Uncertainty and risk
- Traps and biases
- Group decision making
The course project is a Decision Analysis: Analyzing a Decision Situation. Students will identify a client who faces a real decision, analyze the decision using appropriate techniques introduced in the course, and make a recommendation to the client supported by their analysis.
Course Learning Objectives
- Apply a systematic, stepwise process for making effective decisions.
- Apply techniques for making orderly tradeoffs and preference comparisons.
- Analyze simple decision trees and decision trees that deal with more complex, realistic decision problems.
- Assess uncertainties associated with specific choices in light of tolerance for risk and potential loss.
- Describe how to avoid the major psychological traps and biases that decision-makers face.
- Lead a group through a group decision-making process.
- Develop a comprehensive decision analysis using several decision-making techniques.