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Showing posts with label Decisions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Decisions. Show all posts

Scientific Method

So what do those scientists do to solve a problem?  They're usually pretty good at doing that.  The Scientific Method has been around for years, and is well refined.  Here 'tis ... we can apply it to most any problem. 
  1. Purpose ... what do you want to learn?
  2. Research ... find out as much as you can!
  3. Hypothesis ... try to predict the answer to the problem, an "educated guess" ... "If I (do something), then (this will occur)".
  4. Experiment ... design a test or procedure to confirm of disprove your hypothesis.
  5. Analysis ... record what happened during the experiment ... collect data.
  6. Conclusion ... review the data and check to see if your hypothesis was correct
  7. Iteration ... change what didn't work and test it again.

Tips for Picking the Right Opportunity

  1. You and your team are passionate and persistent ...
  2. Your team has or can learn the skills needed ...
  3. Your team can collaborate and cooperate ...
  4. The problem is clear ...
  5. The customers are readily identified ...
  6. The market is significant ...
  7. You have a feasible solution ...
  8. The competition is identifiable ...
  9. Your solution has better and sustainable benefits ...
  10. Your solution can generate a sustainable profit ...
  11. Your venture is timely, important, legal ...
  12. Your venture can build barriers to entry ...
  13. Your concept is scalable ...
  14. You'll invest less time, money, and effort in the venture than it will be worth in a couple of years ...
  15. If the opportunity turns out to be less than favorable, you can exit with minor losses ...
  16. Risks can be mitigated ...
  17. The upside potential is significant and timely ...
  18. Your team has a clear plan for success ...
  19. Your team can find the resources needed ...
  20. You and your team are committed to success ...
  21. The opportunity has a potential for long-term success ...

Buying a Hot Dog Decision Process Flow

Even a relatively simple purchase may have a fair amount of complexity. Take buying a hot dog as an example ...

How to Make a Decision

1. Define the problem, characterizing the general purpose of your decision.
2. Identify the criteria, specifying the goals or objectives that you want to be able to accomplish.
3. Weight the criteria, deciding the relative importance of the goals.
4. Generate alternatives, identifying possible courses of action that might accomplish your various goals.
5. Rate each alternative on each criterion, assessing the extent to which each action would accomplish each goal.
6. Compute the optimal decision, evaluating each alternative by multiplying the expected effectiveness of each alternative with respect to a criterion times the weight of the criterion, then adding up the expected value of the alternative with respect to all criteria.

[Thank you, Paul Thagard]