20728 - DECISION ANALYSIS IN MANAGEMENT
Course taught in English
Go to class group/s: 31
Decisions are the only means you have to change your future life. We make decisions every day. Some decisions are routine, like choosing a television program to watch. Occasionally we make decisions that have profound effects on us and those around us. Gaining competence in decision making is a highly desirable attainment. Although many of the principles of good decision making have been known for centuries, there is little emphasis on this subject throughout our educational lives. The important concepts in this course could be taught in grad school and in high school. Yet when we ask graduate students about having taken previous courses in decision making, few say that they have. Students in professional courses from major companies with global interests have the same response. The purpose of this course is to provide an opportunity to gain this mastery; to be able to achieve clarity of action in making any decision on which you focus your attention. One of the biggest obstacles in gaining decision competence is that most of us think we are pretty good at making decisions. Yet it is easy to demonstrate that even in relatively simple decision situations people make decisions that they see as unwise when they carefully review them.
The course focuses on the best practices that can be adopted to deal with conditions of uncertainty, when facing decisions problems. Namely:
- A structured course of actions to make more efficient decisions
- a language to describe decisions and distinguish strategies, scenarios, and outcomes
- experimentation as a tool to solve critical uncertainties and to get feedback on innovation
- the adoption of optimization and simulation techniques to solve decisions problems
- explain how to adopt a systematic approach to decision-making under uncertainty
- identify the sources of uncertainty behind strategic decisions and address them using experimentation
- illustrate how to integrate all steps by optimization and simulations to reduce the uncertainty
- apply techniques to efficiently represent decisions and their elements, understand the related uncertainties, making effective use of creativity and individual insight
- adopt a proper language to describe decisions and distinguish strategies, scenarios, and outcomes
- Assess how decisions problems can be managed by reducing the underlying uncertainty
- Face-to-face lectures
- Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
- Individual assignments
- Group assignments
The learning experience of this course includes, in addition to face-to-face lectures, case studies discussions, group assignments, concrete examples of decisions problems in companies facing uncertainty. Aside real cases, theoretical insights will be provided.
One group project is assigned during the course: students are expected to discuss and analyse the assignment within their group (or individually) and deliver a report and a presentation about their findings.
The assignment deliverable is used for the student assessment (see next paragraph) and discussed in class to encourage a vibrant learning experience.
The active participation in class is also considered for the overall student assessment.
Attendance: due to this teaching methodology, heavily based on interaction and class participation, attending is recommended.
|Continuous assessment||Partial exams||General exam|
With the purpose of measuring the acquisition of the above-mentioned learning outcomes
the student assessment is based on three main components:
1. In-class participation (10% of the final grade) aimed at testing the student ability to interact
in a multicultural environment and to think critically through contribution given to the class
2. Individual/group assignment (90% of the final grade) designed for the purpose of verifying
the student ability to:
• Analyse decisions problems and identify the main elements, namely the possible
strategies, outcomes and scenarios
• Apply the appropriate approach and methodologies (e.g. experimentation) learnt in
class to address decisions problems
• Work on a team and individually and deliver a clear and articulated report about the
The attendance are measured by the specific app available to all students. To take the exam
as an attending student, an attendance rate equal to or higher than 75% must be reported.
Written exam, (100% of the finale grade) based on a mix of multiple choice and open questions related to the topics covered in class, which aims to assess the student’s learning level of the methodologies and concepts discussed during the course.
Slides discussed in class and uploaded on the e-learning platform.
Slides discussed in class and uploaded on the e-learning platform. More information will be provided at the beginning of the course.