How organizations undertake the group decision making process?

Posted by AxelPrice on June 2nd, 2014

In today's age, organizations often call for meetings where there is a lot of brainstorming, for the purpose of decision making. Such meetings are termed as a group decision making process, and it encompasses getting a collective opinion from the members of the group and reaching an appropriate decision. This is always a  challenging task, as more often than not, members of a group do not have the same opinion on matters, and thus the decision making process gets more complicated and entangled in itself rather than reaching an appropriate end. For this reason, we have the support of group decision making software. This software contains several features which assist in reaching a conclusion.

These are time analysis and optimization features, risk aversion measurement tools, graphic or visual presentation tools etc. Using the software for a group decision making process does not necessarily guarantee surety in results, at all times. However, it does assist in organizing the general frame of thought, so it could slightly ease the decision making process. There are formal systems that are followed while making decisions collectively. These are consensus decision making, voting based methods, Delphi method, and dotmocracy. Consensus decision making refers to the decision being made based on the majority of the group approving the suggested course of action. Voting means making a decision based on the responses from each member of the group, on the suggested plan, or alternatives. The plan with the highest votes would be chosen.

A structured communication method for groups, which was originally developed for collaborative forecasting, is the Delphi method of decision making. Lastly, dotmocracy refers to a method that employs the use of forms or sheets that allow large groups to brainstorm and reach an agreement. These traditional methods of decision making cannot be completely reliable today, owing to changing times and sizes of organizations. Therefore, the assistance of group decision making software is required. This software simplifies the process of reaching a decision by way of a quick convergence of experience, intuition, and data that will assist in making a decision. When there are conflicting opinions, priorities, a huge database of information and countless meetings which helped to reach nowhere, employing the use of software will greatly help matters.

A group decision making process is detailed, intricate and sensitive in itself. The software will not give a right decision by itself, but in fact help the members of the group to reach a collective understanding of the problem at hand. It merely acts as a helping hand to reach the goal, working as a substitute ladder, and is not the ladder itself. It organizes the matters at hand, in terms of listing down the time and resources available, the nature of the task, the type of decision, and the statistics. This way, all group members will at least get a collective picture of the problem. Accordingly, they can think in a similar direction, rather than four different directions. When the group members think maturely, they can make better decisions, rather than conduct petty arguments over mindless matters.

The detailed group decision making process can be simplified to a great extent by using a group decision making software. Such a software is helpful in many different ways.

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AxelPrice

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AxelPrice
Joined: February 17th, 2013
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