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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Decision and Decision-maker in an Industrial Environment developed around the observation that two different decision-makers, faced with the same problem, may not make the same decision. The book proposes explanations for this, ranging from the wholly rational to the irrational, and analyzes different factors in decision-making, such as the intention of the decision-maker, the environment in which their decision is made or the process leading to decision-making. While the common belief is that everything in an industrial environment stems from reasoned decisions, analysis of common practice shows that this is not always the case. This book offers an original perspective by presenting the decision making mechanism from the point of view of the decision maker and their handling of a specific decision-making problem. To learn more about the decision-maker's motivations when faced with these situations, the authors provide a review of the history of decisionmaking and the major trends in decision-making theory. The concepts and methods are presented with illustrations based on the use of an MES, an industrial management software package.
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Seitenzahl: 366
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword
Preface Some Reflections on Decision-making
1 Decision and Decision Context
1.1. Introduction
1.2. A fleeting look at some of the great civilizations
1.3. Conclusion
2 Decisions: The Process
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Why a decision process?
2.3. The notion of process
2.4. Decision-making: rationality or intuition
2.5. The classical theory of rationality
2.6. Procedural rationality theory
2.7. Conclusion
3 The Decision: The Multi-criteria Universe
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Comparing to be able to choose
3.3. The construction of MCDA
3.4. Vocabulary
3.5. Ordering for comparison
3.6. The particular case of Pareto dominance
3.7. Summary
3.8. Conclusion
4 The Decision: Methods
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Outranking
4.3. Aggregation
4.4. Conclusion
Conclusion: So, Ready to Decide?
References
Index
Other titles from iSTE in Systems and Industrial Engineering – Robotics
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1
OR approaches
Table 2.2
Table of gains in a duopoly
Chapter 3
Table 3.1
Performance table for m alternatives and n attributes
Table 3.2
Performance table linked to choice of MES
Table 3.3
Table of results for malternatives and n criteria
Table 3.4
Table of results for choosing an MES
Chapter 4
Table 4.1
Outranking matrix in Condorcet’s method
Table 4.2
Table of results for choosing an MES in ELECTRE III
Table 4.3
Indifference and preference thresholds in ELECTRE III
Table 4.4
Concordance indexes for choosing an MES in ELECTRE III
Table 4.5
Veto thresholds in ELECTRE III
Table 4.6
Discordance indexes for pairs (a
1
, a
2
) and (a
1
, a
3
) in ELECTRE III
Table 4.7
Ranks for the Borda method
Table 4.8
Differences of attractiveness for the Acquisition_price in MACBETH
Table 4.9
Differences of attractiveness between the fictitious alternatives
...
Table 4.10
The scores in MACBETH
List of Illustrations
Preface
Figure P1.
Business: a system, a strategy, a plan, a budget, an environmenta
...
Figure P2.
The two worlds around the act of deciding
Figure P3.
A decision-maker, a decision-maker and a group, several decision-
...
Figure P4.
Decision-maker, decision, indecision and non-decision
Figure P5.
The decision-maker and decision
Figure P6.
A decision by the decision-maker for a system
Figure P7.
The four facets of the act of deciding
Figure P8.
A naive vision of the process linked to the act of deciding
Figure P9.
The decision in the Deming wheel
Figure P10.
The decision, the performance and the objective
Figure P11.
Keywords on decisions
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1.
Analytical framework.
Figure 1.2.
Timeline of the civilizations chosen.
Figure 1.3.
Civilizations and notable facts.
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1.
Decision-making and decision
Figure 2.2.
A naive vision of the decision process
Figure 2.3.
A clear vision of the decision-making process
Figure 2.4.
Different approaches of the classical theory of rationality
Figure 2.5.
Some keywords from the classical theory of rationality
Figure 2.6.
Decision process in the classical theory of rationality
Figure 2.7.
Decision process in operational research
Figure 2.8.
Decision process in game theory
Figure 2.9.
Mechanism of procedural rationality theory
Figure 2.10.
Decision process according to Simon
Figure 2.11.
Decision process according to Mintzberg [MIN 76]
Figure 2.12.
Decision process according to Nonaka [NON 91]
Figure 2.13.
Sequential design process for new products [DEC 98]
Figure 2.14.
Design process for new products in concurrent engineering [DEC
...
Figure 2.15.
Classification of decisions for a complex system [LEM 73]
Figure 2.16.
Decision process and artificial intelligence
Figure 2.17.
Approaches from procedural rationality theory
Figure 2.18.
Procedural rationality decision process
Figure 2.19.
Specifics of the procedural rationality decision process accord
...
Figure 2.20.
Specifics of the procedural rationality decision process accord
...
Figure 2.21.
Specifics of the procedural rationality decision process accord
...
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1.
Illustration of choice in MCDA
Figure 3.2.
Illustration of ranking in MCDA
Figure 3.3.
Illustration of sorting in MCDA
Figure 3.4.
Illustration of scoring in MCDA
Figure 3.5.
Total order between alternatives according to the Acquisition_pr
...
Figure 3.6.
Partial order between alternatives according to the Associated_s
...
Figure 3.7.
Total order for the subset
{
a, b, c
}
Figure 3.8.
Partial order for subset
{
a, b, c, d
}
Figure 3.9.
Partial order for the set
{
a, b, c, d, e, f
}
Figure 3.10.
Illustration of the Pareto front
Figure 3.11.
The MCDA process according to [BEL 02]
Figure 3.12.
The MCDA decision process (Belton’s vision)
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1.
Hasse diagram in Condorcet’s method
Figure 4.2.
Synopsis of the ELECTRE III method [MAY 94]
Figure 4.3.
Preferences and thresholds q
i
and p
i
for the g
i
criterion
Figure 4.4.
Hasse diagram in the ELECTRE III method
Figure 4.5.
Hasse diagram in the Borda count method
Figure 4.6.
Synopsis of the AHP method
Figure 4.7.
Hierarchy of criteria in AHP
Figure 4.8.
Details of information for calculating PR(a
3
) in AHP
Figure 4.9.
Hasse diagram in the AHP method
Figure 4.10.
Synopsis of the MACBETH method according to [BAN 12]
Figure 4.11.
Pre-cardinal scale for the Acquisition_price in MACBETH
Figure 4.12.
Cardinal scale for the Acquisition_price in MACBETH
Figure 4.13.
Pre-cardinal scale for weights in MACBETH
Figure 4.14.
The weights of the criteria and sub-criteria in MACBETH
Figure 4.15.
Hasse diagram in the MACBETH method
Guide
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword
Preface: Some Reflections on Decision-making
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Conclusion: So, Ready to Decide?
References
Index
Other titles from iSTE in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management
Wiley End User License Agreement
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Decision and Decision-maker in an Industrial Environment
Lamia BerrahVincent Clivillé
First published 2023 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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111 River Street
London SW19 4EU
Hoboken, NJ 07030
UK
USA
www.iste.co.uk
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2023The rights of Lamia Berrah and Vincent Clivillé to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022948736
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN 978-1-78630-730-9
Foreword
The contribution to the discussion on decisions and decision support that Lamia Berrah and Vincent Clivillé propose in this book is certainly very stimulating and, as we will try to explain, has a particular cultural value in the context of scientific decision support. To be fully appreciated, the content of this book should be placed in the current context of the widespread diffusion of information technologies in our daily life, as well as in the context of reflections on decisions, especially those made over 40 years by researchers in the scientific community of the “European school” of decision-aiding, to which Lamia Berrah and Vincent Clivillé refer explicitly.
We are living in an era in which there is an excess of data and information and growing computing capacity. This large amount of data and considerable computing power are increasingly used in our daily life, for example when we consult the Internet and when we are offered products of all kinds meant to maximize our satisfaction on the basis of preferences we have expressed, even implicitly. The temptation to think of each decision in terms of optimization is ever greater. After all, deciding would simply amount to finding the best solution given our preferences. In reality, this is a deceptive caricature of the decisions that we make in our daily life. We know that the more important the decisions we have to make, the more our hesitations, doubts, uncertainties and questions increase. These hesitations, doubts, uncertainties and questions are present, indeed amplified, even in the case of decisions involving complex structures such as businesses or public bodies, states or supranational organizations. If we then consider society’s complex problems, such as questions linked to sustainable development and those linked to collective well-being and quality of life, the hesitations, doubts, uncertainties and questions amount to a paroxysm, as a very broad range of stakeholders and interests to protect must be taken into account.
Based on all of these observations, the problem arises of “de-optimizing” decisions to consider them as a process in which all the hesitations, doubts, uncertainties and questioning that we probe in our daily decisions can find a place. This overhaul of decision-making and the approach to decision support has been systematically developed by the European school of decision-aiding, under the direction of Bernard Roy (who also introduced the verb “de-optimize” in one of his articles in 1968) [ROY 68b]. At the methodological level, the European school for decision-aiding is based on multi-criteria methods that explicitly consider the plurality of points of view considered in a decision problem, technically called criteria. For example, in decisions related to sustainable development, the criteria are the various environmental, social and economic aspects to be taken into account. These underpin any decision we make. The basic idea behind decision-aiding is to provide all the subjects involved in a decision problem with tools that help them to reflect and argue through a model constructed in collaboration with the analyst. In this perspective, to properly understand the message of this book, it is necessary to bear in mind the basic contributions, especially the first ones, of the European school of decision-aiding. Reading through these texts, what leaps out is the effort to give a broad cultural perspective to the different approach proposed. Thus, for example, in Bernard Roy’s book from 1985, Méthodologie multicritère d’aide à la décision [ROY 85], which has become the reference for decision-aiding, each chapter and each section begins with quotations of some reference researchers such as the chemist Ilya Prigogine, the physicist Bernard D’Espagnat, the philosophers Michèle Serre, Karl Popper and Gaston Bachelard, the sociologists Gregory Bateson, Michel Crozier and Lucien Sfez, each one focusing on the basics of their discipline. In the book Décider sur plusieurs critères [SCH 85], from the same year, which thanks to its popular style has certainly provided a fundamental contribution to the spread of decision-aiding, to discuss the cultural bases of the multi-criteria approach, Alain Schärlig refers to, among others, Aristotle, Emmanuel Kant, René Descartes, Thomas Kuhn and Edgar Morin via quantum physics and going as far as Heraclitus. This idea that the European school of decision-aiding bases its scientific approaches to decisions on a broad reflection of its cultural foundations is taken up by Lamia Berrah and Vincent Clivillé. They avoid mere technicality, and rather than listing algorithms, techniques and methods, they retrace, from the earliest eras, the approaches that have been manifested historically to the problem of decisions, with particular attention given to the discussion in the domain of industrial management. Along this journey, Lamia Berrah and Vincent Clivillé rediscover the raison d’être of a decision-aiding approach and provide a perspective that allows us to use with awareness all the algorithms, techniques and methods that the European school of decision-aiding has itself put in place.
Why do we think that the operation proposed by Lamia Berrah and Vincent Clivillé, i.e. a return to the cultural bases of decision-aiding, is important today? To answer this question, it is interesting to refer to an expression that highlights the limits of the optimization approach that the European school of decision-aiding has attempted to surpass. This expression is arithmorphism. It is a concept that was recalled by Alain Schärlig in an article from 1996 [SCH 96] and reprised by Bernard Roy in his article from 2000 [ROY 00]. Alain Schärlig and Bernard Roy present arithmorphism as a tendency to use arithmetic and in general the mathematical approach to express heterogeneous quantities on a single scale, often in monetary terms, as in the case of cost–benefit analysis, in order to aggregate different aspects and to compare each alternative by allocating it a numerical value. This predisposition generates the belief that there is always a decision that is objectively the best, which corresponds to choosing the alternative that has the greatest value. In fact, the concept of arithmorphism was introduced by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen in his reference work The Entropy Law and the Economic Process [GEO 71], with the intention of condemning the construction of mathematical models in economics without the support of a suitable theory, i.e. not supported by a general reflection. We would like to return to the original significance of arithmorphism for Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen as it demonstrates the benefit of cultural reflection in studying questions linked to decisions. Indeed, the problem lies not so much in rejecting the idea that optimization is the sole approach to making decisions, as in rejecting, much more broadly and radically, any non-critical application of algorithms and quantitative methods to decision problems, without considering their articulation with a decision process that aims to construct participants’ “preferences” for the decision process, rather than discovering pre-existing preferences in the mind of an abstract decision-maker. In fact, we have to admit that, in general, these discovered “pre-existing preferences” could be very labile and even misleading in the mind of a real decision-maker. Therefore, the problem today, more than 40 years after the birth of the European school of decision-aiding, is that of a “return to arithmorphism”, linked to the erroneous belief that the legitimacy of decision-aiding can flow from the mere application of methods that were produced by the European school, as well as by any other technical approach to decision support. To be even clearer, the problem is to reduce the field of decision-aiding to the simple application, for example, of one of the ELECTRE1 methods proposed by Bernard Roy. It should not be forgotten that these methods, like all other decision-aiding methods, are tools and that to use them well, an awareness is needed that can only be generated by knowing their basic principles and the path that has led to the emergence and acceptance of these fundamental principles.
From this perspective, Lamia Berrah’s and Vincent Clivillé’s contribution reminds us that reflection on the foundations should never cease, without calling into question the validity of results that can provide us with the tools offered by the school of decision-aiding. We therefore hope that this contribution will meet with the success it deserves and that it will form the starting point for a discussion on the foundations of the decision-aiding approach (and, more generally, of any scientific approach to decision-making), which will be able to give new life to its theory and applications.
January 2023
Salvatore GRECO
University Professor
Department of Economics, University of Catania, Italy
Note
1
ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité
(Elimination and Choice Translating Reality).
PrefaceSome Reflections on Decision-making
“Once I’ve made a decision, I hesitate for a long time”. If we choose to introduce this book with the quotation from Renard, it is because it surreptitiously sketches the outlines of the notion of decisions, which is the subject under discussion, while still nevertheless starting to suggest a number of contrasts that could accompany its use: speed and slowness, certainty and doubt, responsibility and misgiving, etc. Thus, this quotation, amusing at first, allows us to touch on an implicit complexity mixed with a sort of apparent simplicity – of this concept of decisions.
Indeed there are “things” that only meet with accurate explanation among the philosophers. Concepts such as beauty, love, freedom and happiness allow each one of us to adopt our own vision, perception or feeling, in the process leaving inaccuracy, ambiguity or indeed error in our speech. On the contrary, the same will not be true of the notion of decisions. The notion of decisions resonates clearly, independently of the level of awareness of those who make them. It is clearly understood. It nevertheless takes on a form of complexity and indeterminism. Also, although the concept of deciding is unanimously understood in the same way and presents a simple and direct definition, the same will not be true of the way in which the decision will be made, a way that is sometimes unpredictable, unsystematic, potentially subjective, unjust or risky, etc. The same will not be true for the form it will take, an answer to a question, a solution to a problem, a reflexive act, one alternative among others, a negation or an affirmation, etc. In more arithmetical terms, deciding could be seen as a function whose domain of definition would be binary, whereas the resulting decision could take a large number of values.
Clarity has never claimed to be the twin of simplicity. A substantial number of books, treatises and theories have consequently supported the notion of decisions and brought to it clarifications, definitions, mathematizations, methods, tools, etc. The idea of this book is to meet a need of a different nature, that of drawing out the links between the different sub-tonalities and the different parameters of decisions. Just as before for the concepts of objectives and of performance, we seek this time to go beyond the primary simplicity of the concept of decisions and explore its different facets. A systematic look will be adopted with an emphasis on interactions between actors in decisions and the decisions themselves. This will allow us to depart from our usual framework offered by information theory, to visit and survey, with the eyes of a technician on request, the framework offered by the human sciences.
Exploring the outlines of decisions means managing to answer questions such as those listed below.
– What are the parameters involved in decisions?
– In what circumstances do we speak of decisions?
– Do decisions have an opposite, i.e. do non-decisions exist?
– Are there “prerequisites” for decisions?
– Are decisions an isolated and occasional act or an overall and permanent process?
– Can decisions be qualified?
– Can we speak of right decisions and wrong decisions?
– Can decisions be managed?
– What kind of pairing do humans make with decisions?
– How can we explain why two different decision-makers, for a single situation, can make different decisions?
– How do we explain why, depending on the circumstances, a single decision-maker can make different decisions for a single situation? Will the context in which the decision is made impact it?
– Are decisions a thought-through or rather an unconscious act?
– Are decisions accompanied by the tools with which to make them? Do these tools depend on the type of decision to be made?
– What difference is there between a decision, an objective and an action?
– Does the way in which a decision is made impact it?
– Will the object of the decision influence the way in which the decision is made? In particular, do we make the same decisions for ourselves as we do for others?
About 15 questions have been asked, and we expect we will be able to go beyond that. It is these questions that sustain our fascination with the notion and our motivation to study it. Asking such questions and seeing the questions unfold thereby confirms for us the idea that answers given at local and isolated levels will only have meaning in an overall, systematic vision.
Figure P1.Business: a system, a strategy, a plan, a budget, an environmental policy, steering, decisions and people
The fascination with the outlines of decisions is even more evident when it is applied to a context such as business. Indeed, the business world is renowned for its unfailing use of strategy, precise planning of its needs and a keen steering of its processes, based on the best adapted tools, which are often the most modern (Figure P.1). Nevertheless, humans remain at the helm and remain the main actor in the operation of this system, all the “big” decisions made there belong to humankind, with different ranges as the complexity and diversity of the organization require. Business thus offers the possibility of considering a broad panel of decisions. It will therefore be our preferred foreground for illustrating the process of decision-making.
How do we approach this exploration of decisions? Let us offer the originality of a space for free discourse on the topic. This will at the outset be a search to structure our discussion and foreground the main dimensions of decisions, by classically reviewing the main models for decisions and the main trends of thought.
In addition, let us begin at what seems to be the beginning.
Figure P2.The two worlds around the act of deciding
First, the act of deciding comes to mind. Deciding means “adjudicating”, “choosing”, “doing what you feel like”, “doing what is best”, “weighing the for and against”, “stopping dithering”, “moving on to action”, etc. As if, by this act, the being who decides – the decision-maker – moves from one world to another, from the world of reflection to the world of concretization (Figure P.2). As if this act could be therefore, for the decision-maker, the concretization of a feeling, a thought, a reflection, a fear or a desire. This passing from one world to another could be achieved in more than one way. It could be more or less spontaneous or thought-out, more or less predictable. It could also be more or less bounded by a universe of concretization, which, in turn, could be more constrained. In particular, it could be there to meet an orientation towards a better solution. In which case, this would eventually mean that several scenarios would be available, some more favorable than others. Deciding therefore becomes strongly synonymous with choice. This would then mean that the way in which decisions are made would be identified as a sort of comparison of the solutions offered. We might therefore think that in such cases, deciding becomes more rational and so, perhaps, easier. At least, the problem of deciding becomes the problem of knowing how to choose, and thus of knowing what to renounce.
Thus, we might say that deciding is a boundary between two worlds, a sort of bridge, a sort of passage between them which illustrates, in various forms and under the influence of multiple parameters, some concretization:
– the act of deciding marks the passage from a theoretical/virtual world to a concrete world;
– the passage from a theoretical/virtual world to a concrete world takes various forms.
Let us take care, however, not to identify the first world as that of reflection and thought and the second world as that of matter too quickly. Everything might in fact take place in the world of thought alone.
Two aspects can be identified in addition. The first aspect concerns the interest, motivation, i.e. the underlying intention that would make the decision-maker decide as they do and opt for this or that solution as the case may be. And the second aspect concerns the domain of the possible, in relation to which the decision can be made. Let us pursue both these aspects further.
A person makes a decision with a view to reaching a state, obtaining a situation, whether material or immaterial, hence they decide for something. We will call this “something” the objective. Since the objective is the responsibility of its declarant, it will necessarily be impacted by their intention, i.e. their frame of mind in relation to their achievement. This would therefore be the objective, the first element. This may become complicated if the declarant of the objective is not the one who makes the decision. In which case, making a decision would involve a chain – or a loop – in which several actors might be involved. And whoever speaks of actors therefore speaks of potentially different intentions. We might also easily imagine that the intention could then change depending on the “proximity” of the actor to the objective. By proximity, we should understand the link, the expectations and personal projections of the decision-maker on the attainment of the objective. Naturally, the more neutral the link and the less it engages the emotions – the affect – of the decision-maker, the more the act of deciding will be devoid of “passion” and meet “standards”. If the decision-maker identifies with their deciding role, it will be different, with the attitude of the decision-maker strongly impacting the result. It is in exactly this context that the famous “charisma” of managers is often mentioned and appreciated. And where this result concerns not only the decision-maker but an organization, the management will take on its meaning and will have the role of weighing and balancing directions. From one thing to another, the “teasing out” around the act of deciding happens very rapidly. For our part, we will often keep the spoken intention of the decision-maker as resulting from their different attributes.
However, could each actor in the chain – or loop – be considered a decision-maker? Or indeed is the only decision-maker the actor involved in the final stage, the one who makes the decision? Here therefore are two dimensions that are beginning to overlap. On the one hand, the intention of the decision-maker conditions how they make decisions. On the other hand, although they are not the only one to contribute to the decision, choices may differ since the stated objective may not be the objective of each or may not mean the same thing for each one. Another dimension could also be imagined, similar to the one we have just described and which would concern the case of several decision-makers. Through their intentions, the decision that emerges might equally represent a compromise situation, just as much as a situation resulting from a more or less disguised “dictatorship” (Figure P.3).
How does the intention impact the decision? What remains of the intention if we are not in a situation to make a choice, or at least, if a person does not feel that they are in a position to make a decision? The answer may be quite clear. In reality, deciding could always be considered as being synonymous with choosing. The variant will appear precisely in a panel of possible choices. There may in fact be offered to the decision-maker a set of well-determined possibilities, even though only a single one may appear to them, in which case the choice will result in a sort of “go” or “no-go”, sometimes with one of these two alternatives not even being visible to the decision-maker. “I’ve no choice! I have to!” or “I’ve no choice! I can’t.” Intermediate situations may also happen, in which, for example, the number of possibilities would be unknown, some possibilities would be less clear than others and the only possibility would be imprecise. Feeling would replace its characterization. But then, is deciding always relevant in this case?
Figure P3.A decision-maker, a decision-maker and a group, several decision-makers
More precisely, must we decide to decide at all costs when we decide to decide or indeed is it necessary to have prerequisites for this? Would these prerequisites involve the decision-maker or indeed the system considered? We could in fact ask about the potential prerequisites for being the decision-maker. Are we decision-makers or do we become decision-makers? How do we declare ourselves to be a decision-maker? Are there conditions necessary to being one? Is deciding innate to humans or is it something that is acquired, a suggestion of humans’ environment or humans’ contexts? Our reflections may lead us spontaneously to distinguish two situations, one where the decision-maker would be the only actor involved, then impacted by their decision or one where, on the contrary, the decision-maker would not be the only actor involved; where they would decide for a group, an organization or a system. But in the end, does this distinction really have a meaning? In other words, are there situations in which our decision would only impact ourselves, without any effect on the world? No, because we know today that this effect, more or less large, more or less immediate, quite clearly exists. In shorter or longer terms, any act of deciding therefore has its repercussions on a system or organization. However, the outlines of this system or this organization may not be known initially. The nuance will therefore lie rather in the decision-maker having the power to announce themselves as such or in this power being conferred on an entity external to them. The challenge of choosing therefore becomes substantial for the decision-maker. It is without doubt in this sense that recourse to tools known as decision-making tools may be a sort of neutrality and coherence. This may also explain the fact that two decision-makers may not make the same decision. In this sense, the attitude of the decision-maker, mentioned in brief previously, contributes to the ability to be/become a decision-maker, depending on the level of awareness and skills, certainties and fears brought to light in this context of making a decision. There will therefore be a decided and an undecided decision-maker, a confident decision-maker and a decision-maker lacking in confidence, an optimistic decision-maker and a pessimistic decision-maker, a sincere decision-maker and a manipulative decision-maker, etc.
At the same time, is it possible, in life, to abstain from deciding? In other words, can we declare ourselves a non-decision-maker (in absolute terms)? Envisaging an eventuality and its counterpart allows us to consider the existence of contexts (systems, situations, moments) for which we can declare ourselves a decision-maker and situations for which, on the contrary, it would be better to abstain from deciding. The extreme case is one in which a person makes the decision not to decide. Non-decision is consequently a decision. Naturally, non-decision should not be confused with indecision, even though the latter may lead to it. This capacity for discernment will enable “bad” decisions to be avoided. Moreover, it will allow everyone to be in their right place, and will allow everyone the potential to “become” a decision-maker. Figure P.4 illustrates these respective situations of decision-making, indecision and non-decision for the particular case for which, faced with the multiple possibilities offered, deciding amounts to choosing one of these possibilities.
Figure P4.Decision-maker, decision, indecision and non-decision
At this level, for which we like the mathematical formalization, fuzzy sets theory might be of help. This theory, which has already been tested for the declaration of objectives and expression of performance, can in fact be presented to capture subjectivity, uncertainty, imprecision, doubts, indecision, etc. As many parameters as there are known attributes of the act of deciding.
Let us now consider some preliminaries to the act of being a decision-maker (Figure P.5):
– behind every decision is a decision-maker;
– the act of being a decision-maker is not something decreed but something lived;
– the quality of the decision can be impacted by the decision-maker’s intention;
– deciding involves the attitude of the decision-maker;
– a decision-maker decides in an adequate context.
Naturally, when reading these properties, we can imagine AI devices (artificial intelligence) and the potentialities it could offer on the subject of relatively automated, robotized decisions. This situation will escape our discussion, highlighting, from our point of view, the limits of the decision made in the classical sense, so by a decision-maker, and covering a fairly restricted space for decisions.
Figure P5.The decision-maker and decision
We finish this aside on the revelation of the decision-maker and resume our reasoning. When we decide, we decide to cross a boundary with a view to an objective to be reached. This objective will certainly be that of the decision-maker, but it will have a range, it will involve a system, a variable or a quantity in relation to which the objective will be declared, the decision made and the result evaluated. “Something” will therefore be decided. We would like to think, as engineers and as information and modeling scientists, that the more that “something” is linked to an objective, material, easily quantifiable quantity, the more that objective will be absolute and shared. But this would not take account of the affect of the decision-maker, as mentioned above, which broadly conditions their intention and attitude. It is in this register that we might dissociate situations from desire, from a pure vision by the decision-maker, from those of insufficiencies or gaps to fill, an objective and rational observation. Deciding will not happen in the same state of mind; just as decision will not have the same qualifications (importance, risk, etc.). We might thus imagine the following properties:
– the decision involves an objective to be attained;
– the nature of the objective conditions the decision.
Let us go over the act of deciding once more. Certainly, we decide “for something”, but also “from something” and “in relation to something”. The “from something” is attached to the act of deciding, and the “in relation to something” is linked to the system. The system will offer the variables in relation to which the objectives will be stated. We can in fact imagine the singularity as well as the plurality of these variables (and objectives). Moreover, it is according to these variable(s) that the decisions will be characterized as big, important, minimal, without risk, etc. There too, decisions will not be made in the same way. And this time, these qualifiers will link the act of deciding to the system. At this level, we note that, naturally, the more the decision-maker “knows” the system, the clearer the act of deciding can be for them. But as any system exists in an environment, this knowledge and clarity are often joined by uncertainty.
The following properties also sum up these remarks:
– the decision involves a system;
– the nature of the system variables which are involved in the decision conditions the decision;
– knowledge of the system and its environment impacts the decision;
– decision and uncertainty may be mutual.
Let us return a while to this notion of the system’s environment. This environment will identify part of the context in which the decision – in relation to the system considered – will be made. Stating the hypothesis that the decision-maker will necessarily be an observer of this system, we will link the decision-making context and the system’s environment. Part of this environment will be known, clear and observable. Another part will be implicit and unaware. We might therefore speak of culture, conditioning, rules of life, of habits, customs and traditions. These two parts would explain how the decisions are made. The company, which is a conventional and highly formalized system, will not escape the rule of these two parts. Additionally, part of the impact of decisions on such a system could be quantifiable, whereas others could be felt, and in some cases even unexpected.
Moreover, let us establish at this level of our discussion a working framework of a system external to the decision-maker (Figure P.6). We will leave aside decision situations for which the decision-maker is led to decide for themselves. We will focus instead on those situations where someone makes a decision for a system that has material existence.
Figure P6.A decision by the decision-maker for a system
So more generally, we can consider that four parameters constitute the act of deciding (Figure P.7):
– the decision-maker, they who decide, their skills and knowledge, their affect, their intention and their attitude;
– the object of the decision, the “something” in relation to which a decision is made;
– the objective of the decision, the “for something” that motivates the decision;
– the decision, as such, the “from something” that results from the act of deciding.
From this first structure we can, as we began to do earlier in this discussion, imagine all the variants of the act of deciding, depending on the attitude of the decision-maker, for example the importance and nature of the object of the decision or the objective, etc. These are therefore variants that mean that deciding fits more or less into the chain of “reflecting, discussing, organizing and, finally, choosing”, whether it is an immediate act or rather an act that is prepared, an act of certainty or one marked with uncertainty, fear or risk, an objective act or, on the contrary, an emotional reaction. The decision-maker, the object of the decision, the objective of the decision and deciding become consubstantial facets of the act of deciding.
Figure P7.The four facets of the act of deciding
This thus leads us to seek to position the act of deciding, on the one hand, and the decision itself, on the other hand. Intuitively and this is what we supposed, we would like to say that the decision is the result of the act of deciding. To go in this direction, we note that the decision is “made”. It cannot be owned or obtained. This indeed reinforces the idea that it is the result of a form both of projection or reflection, and of action, a concretization of the projection or reflection. Deciding is the action, whereas the decision is its result. The decision thus becomes the concretization of a process, of this passage between two worlds – the theoretical and the concrete. This process – of making a decision strictly speaking – may be more or less complex and involve one or more variables. By processes we understand, usually, the succession of a number of stages, which will allow the transformation of an idea, a feeling, an objective or an observation into a decision. The process will be the structuring model for the chain mentioned previously. The large bricks of such a process can be distinguished intuitively according to three stages, which would correspond respectively (see also Figure P.8) to:
– everything that is prerequisite to the decision;
– the decision;
– what will be a corollary to the decision.
The “before” of the decision will concern all the prerequisites needed to make the decision, i.e. the identification (perhaps both) of the decision-maker, of the object of the decision as well as its objective. The decision will be the orientation given. It remains a mystery to us for the time being. The “after” of the decision will influence the implementation of the decision made and potentially the expression of an associated performance in view of the results obtained. Naturally, this naive characterization will have a strong need to rely on those offered by the literature that we will encounter in the following chapters.
Figure P8.A naive vision of the process linked to the act of deciding
It will be the steering of these processes that will almost immediately lead to the right decision being made; the thinking will move, for industrial engineers, towards the precepts of the Deming wheel (Plan, Do, Check, Act) and the positioning of the decision in its first and fourth respective stages (Figure P.9). The decision will have its place in the planning stage (Plan), the one that concerns the “what to do” and the “how to do it”; of which a very specific case would be the binary situation mentioned above (“go” or “no-go” amounts in fact to “do that” or “do not do that”). In the case of a negative vision, the decision is not to carry out the envisaged objective; no planning will therefore be forecast. Although the Do and Check stages concern respectively the execution of the planned actions and the expression of the associated performance, the Act stage will naturally concern the decision too, since the Deming wheel is essentially cyclical. It is at this level that discussion around the notion of reaction can be envisaged. A reactive decision can mean a form of haste that would lead the decision-maker to decide poorly. A reactive decision can equally mean a decision that follows an analysis and an observation. We will repeat ourselves once again: the consequences will differ depending on whether the reaction concerns the system or the decision-maker.
Figure P9.The decision in the Deming wheel
We could, however, enquire about the input data for the decision process. Although we are still inspired by the philosophies of continuous improvement, these data can identify an existent (as is) that allows an objective (to be) to be declared. A diagnostic stage, involving expression of needs, will therefore be required for the decision. In cases where desire and intuition are involved, the diagnostic stage will not be needed. Outside this particular case, a minimum of explicit information is therefore opportune for making the decision.
