Sunday, October 6, 2013
Decisions Decisions by Administrators: decisions, decisions by administrators
Decisions Decisions by Administrators: decisions, decisions by administrators: "It would be a mistake to conclude that only administrators make decisions. While decision making is an important process, it i...
decisions, decisions by administrators
"It would be a mistake to conclude that only administrators make decisions. While decision making is an important process, it is fundamentally a people process. Decisions are made almost daily by the Superintendents about goals and strategies and then are filtered down to all the parties that are involved in the process. Making decisions is a way of life for administrators and they are paid to make the decisions. The author has said there are two basic models of decision making; the rational model and the bounded rationality model,
The administrative decision making is considered to be rational, meaning school administrators make decisions under certainty: they know their alternatives, the outcomes; decision criteria; the ability to make the optimum choice and then implement it (Towler, 2010). There are six steps to the rational decision making process (Schoenfeld, 2011).
1. Identifying the problem, effective decision makers are aware of the importance of properly identifying the problem and understanding the problem situation (Kepner, & Tregoe, 2005) feels the first step of the decision making process is the most important and sometimes defining what is not the problem to make the quality of the decision. There are four steps in the Kepner and Tregoe problem analysis; problem identification, definition of what the problem is and is not, prioritizing the problem and testing the cause and effect relationship.
2. Generating alternatives, the school administrator must seek to learn as much as possible concerning the likelihood that each alternative will result in the achievement of various outcomes, and the extent to which those outcomes will contribute to the achievement of the goals and objectives being sought. The search for alternatives is dependent upon the importance of the decision, if the decision is to build a new school or remodel the present building, more alternatives and more people will be involved before the final decision is made (Zopounidis, 2011a, b).
3. Evaluating alternatives, when evaluating the alternatives the administrator must ask himself "Is the alternative feasible," Is it a satisfactory alternative,"What impact will it have on people" (Grant, 2011). The first question means can it be done without disrupting the district and is there monies to do it? The second question to what extent does it address the problem. The last question is this alternative satisfactory to the people that must live with the consequences of the decision (Hastie, 2010).
4. Choosing an alternative, one approach is to select the alternative that is feasible, satisfactory, and acceptable to the work group (Gilboa, 2011). Because most situations do not lend themselves to sophisticated mathematical analysis, the administrator uses this available information with judgment and intuition to make the decision (Mendel, 2011).
5. Implementing the decision, school administrators need to make sure that the alternative is clearly understood by the involved staff, the administrators need to encourage acceptance of the alternative as a necessary course of action to help the decision to be successful, the administrators must provide adequate resources to make the alternative succeed they should set up budgets and schedules for the change, administrators should establish workable time lines should the action be piece meal or all at once and the administrators need to assign responsibilities clearly so everyone involved understand their role in each phase for the implementation to be successful (Ahmed, 2011).
The final step is evaluating the effectiveness of the decision if it failed or only provided part of the solution, the administrator will have to review the alternatives again and repeat the steps to a new decision.
Herbert Simon (1982, 1997, 2009) coined the term bounded rationality to describe the decision maker who would like to make the best decisions but normally settles for the less than the optimal and implies the following; 1. Decisions will always be based on incomplete and inadequate understanding of the problem. 2. All possible alternative solutions will not be generated for consideration. 3. Alternatives are evaluated incompletely not knowing all consequences of the alternatives. 4. The alternative of choice must be based on some criterion other than maximization or optimization because it is impossible to determine which alternative is optimal.
The author speaks about "The Garbage-Can Model, problems and solutions cannot be translated into logical sequence of steps like the rational model (Fullan, 2010; Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2008). As members of a school or school district generate problems and alternative solutions, they deposit them in the garbage can. The mixture is seen as solutions that must be matched to problems. Participants are also deposited into the garbage can, mixing problems, solutions, an d decision participants' results in interaction patterns leading to decisions that often do not follow purely rational decision making."
Hoy, W.K., & Miskel, C.G. (2010). The Decision Making Process, National Forum of
Educational Administration and Supervision Journal, Vol. 27, #4, 2010.
The administrative decision making is considered to be rational, meaning school administrators make decisions under certainty: they know their alternatives, the outcomes; decision criteria; the ability to make the optimum choice and then implement it (Towler, 2010). There are six steps to the rational decision making process (Schoenfeld, 2011).
1. Identifying the problem, effective decision makers are aware of the importance of properly identifying the problem and understanding the problem situation (Kepner, & Tregoe, 2005) feels the first step of the decision making process is the most important and sometimes defining what is not the problem to make the quality of the decision. There are four steps in the Kepner and Tregoe problem analysis; problem identification, definition of what the problem is and is not, prioritizing the problem and testing the cause and effect relationship.
2. Generating alternatives, the school administrator must seek to learn as much as possible concerning the likelihood that each alternative will result in the achievement of various outcomes, and the extent to which those outcomes will contribute to the achievement of the goals and objectives being sought. The search for alternatives is dependent upon the importance of the decision, if the decision is to build a new school or remodel the present building, more alternatives and more people will be involved before the final decision is made (Zopounidis, 2011a, b).
3. Evaluating alternatives, when evaluating the alternatives the administrator must ask himself "Is the alternative feasible," Is it a satisfactory alternative,"What impact will it have on people" (Grant, 2011). The first question means can it be done without disrupting the district and is there monies to do it? The second question to what extent does it address the problem. The last question is this alternative satisfactory to the people that must live with the consequences of the decision (Hastie, 2010).
4. Choosing an alternative, one approach is to select the alternative that is feasible, satisfactory, and acceptable to the work group (Gilboa, 2011). Because most situations do not lend themselves to sophisticated mathematical analysis, the administrator uses this available information with judgment and intuition to make the decision (Mendel, 2011).
5. Implementing the decision, school administrators need to make sure that the alternative is clearly understood by the involved staff, the administrators need to encourage acceptance of the alternative as a necessary course of action to help the decision to be successful, the administrators must provide adequate resources to make the alternative succeed they should set up budgets and schedules for the change, administrators should establish workable time lines should the action be piece meal or all at once and the administrators need to assign responsibilities clearly so everyone involved understand their role in each phase for the implementation to be successful (Ahmed, 2011).
The final step is evaluating the effectiveness of the decision if it failed or only provided part of the solution, the administrator will have to review the alternatives again and repeat the steps to a new decision.
Herbert Simon (1982, 1997, 2009) coined the term bounded rationality to describe the decision maker who would like to make the best decisions but normally settles for the less than the optimal and implies the following; 1. Decisions will always be based on incomplete and inadequate understanding of the problem. 2. All possible alternative solutions will not be generated for consideration. 3. Alternatives are evaluated incompletely not knowing all consequences of the alternatives. 4. The alternative of choice must be based on some criterion other than maximization or optimization because it is impossible to determine which alternative is optimal.
The author speaks about "The Garbage-Can Model, problems and solutions cannot be translated into logical sequence of steps like the rational model (Fullan, 2010; Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2008). As members of a school or school district generate problems and alternative solutions, they deposit them in the garbage can. The mixture is seen as solutions that must be matched to problems. Participants are also deposited into the garbage can, mixing problems, solutions, an d decision participants' results in interaction patterns leading to decisions that often do not follow purely rational decision making."
Hoy, W.K., & Miskel, C.G. (2010). The Decision Making Process, National Forum of
Educational Administration and Supervision Journal, Vol. 27, #4, 2010.
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