CHARACTER

FORMATION
II

PRESENTED BY GROUP 1
B.S.CRIM101A
 CHAPTER 3

DECISION-MAKING
PROCESS
Wikipedia says, In psychology, decision-making is regarded as the
cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of
action among several alternative possibilities. Decision-making is
the process of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the
values, preferences and beliefs of the decision-maker.
While Merriam Webster says that decision making is a act or
process of deciding something especially with a group of people.
 WHAT IS DECISION MAKING
Decision-making is the process of choosing a
course of action from two or more
alternatives. A decision is a conscious choice
to behave to think in a particular way in a
given set of circumstances.
 PROCESS OF DECISION-
MAKING
The process of decision making has eight steps
that begin with formulating a problem that
moves to selecting an alternative that can
alleviate the problem, and concludes with
evaluating the decision’s effectiveness
1. FORMULATING PROBLEM. The decision making process
begins with the existence of a problem, or more specifically, a
discrepancy between an existing and desired state of affairs.
2. IDENTIFYING CRITERIA. Once a police supervisor has
identified a problem that needs attention, the decision criteria
that will be important in solving the problems must be
identified.
3. ALLOCATING WEIGHTS. This means ranking which criteria
is the most important to the decision-making process. Violet feels
that the biggest weight should be given to how the change will
affect employees. The other weights are then distributed equally.
4. DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVES. This step requires the decision
maker to list the viable alternatives that can succeed in resolving the
problem.
5. ANALYZING ALTERNATIVES. Once the alternatives have been
identified, the decision maker must critically analyze each one. The
strengths and weakness of each alternative become evident as they
are compared with the criteria and weights established.
6. SELECTING ALTERNATIVES. The sixth step is the critical act
of choosing the best alternative from among the enumerated and
assessed.
7. IMPLEMENTING ALTERNATIVES. This step is
concerned with putting the decision to action
8. EVALUATION OF EFFECTIVENESS. The last step
in decision-making process appraises the result of the
decision to see whether it has corrected the problem. It
also involves establishing cause-effect relationships about
the extent to which a particular policy (or a set of
policies) produces the desired outcome.
 PERVASIVENESS OF
DECISION-MAKING
The importance of decision making to every facet of a police
supervisor’s job cannot over be overestimated. Decision making
permeates all the police supervisor’s when they plan, organize,
assign, staff officers, direct coordinate, budget, and report are
frequently called decision-makers.
Police Supervisors always makes decisions every day of the
year to deal with the problems encountered by the police
organization.
 RATIONAL DECISION-
MAKERS
Police supervisory decision-making is assumed to
be rational. By that it means that police supervisors
make consistent, value maximizing choices within
specific constraints. There is also a need at the
underlying assumptions of rationality and then
determine how valid these assumptions actually are.
1. ASSUMPTIONS TO RATIONALITY. A decision-maker who is perfectly
rational would be fully objective and logical. He or she will define a problem
carefully and will have a clear and specific goal. The following list summarizes
the assumptions of rationality.
a. PROBLEMS CLARITY. In rational decision making, the problem is clear and
unambiguous. The decision-maker is assumed to have complete information
regarding the decision situation.
b. GOAL ORIENTATION. In rational decision-making there is no conflict over
the goal. The decision maker has a single, well defined goal that he or she is
trying to reach.
c. KNOWN OPTIONS. It is assumed that the decision-maker is creative, can
identify all the relevant criteria, and can list all the viable alternatives.
d. CLEAR PREFERENCE. Rationality assumes that the criteria and
alternatives can be ranked according to their importance
e. CONSTANT PREFERENCE. In addition to a clear goal and
preferences, it is assumed that the specific decision criteria are
constant and that the weights assigned to them are stable over time.
f. NO COST CONSTRAINTS. The rational decision maker always
chooses the alternatives because it is assumed that there are no time
or constraints.
g. RESOURCES UTILIZATION. The rational decision maker always
chooses the alternatives that will yield maximum utilization of
resources.
2. LIMITS TO RATIONALITY. Supervisory decision-making can follow rational
assumptions.
Here are some important insights about the decision making process.
a. There are limits to an individual’s information processing capacity.
b. Perceptual biases can distort problems identification
c. Decision-makers tend to inter-mix solutions with problems. The definition of a
problem often includes a rough description of an acceptable solution.
d. Many decision-makers select information more for its accessibility than for its
quality.
e. Decision-makers tend to commit themselves permanently to a specific
alternative early in the decision process, thus biasing the process toward
choosing that alternative.
f. Evidence that a previous solution is not working does not always generate
a search for new alternative.
g. Prior decision precedents constrain current choices
h. Organizations are of divergent interest that make it difficult even
impossible, to create a common effort toward a single goal.
i. Organization placed time and cost constraints on decision-makers, in turn
limit the amount of search that the supervisor can undertake. Thus new
alternative tend to be sought in the neighborhood of old ones.
j. In spite of the potential for diversity, a strong conservatives bias exists in
most organization cultures.
3.BOUNDED RATIONALITY. The idea that in
decision-making, rationality of individuals is
limited by the information they have, the cognitive
limitations of their minds, and the finite amount
of time they have to make a decision.
 BASIC CATEGORIES OF
DECISIONS
1. PROGRAMMED DECISIONS. Programmed decisions
are made on the basis of established policies, rules or
procedures.
2. NON-PROGRAMMED DECISIONS. This is not
bound by policy, rules and procedures.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!!
