Decision MAKING

During this decision making exercise I used the method of compromise and a little bit of collaboration. After hearing Professor K asking us what we would like to do to change the grade of the exams I was in an awe. I have not had a professor ask the class to come up with a solution or a way to better the exam grade. If there were a change it was a curve that was given and you either take it or leave it. Additionally, I did not think that the decision we came up with was going to be the final decision. Therefore, I just wanted to get something rather than nothing from this opportunity. Everyone in the class I think had this thought in their minds during the exercise since it was rare. The collaboration comes into effect for myself when ideas were being mentioned, people in class were forming little aside groups to voice their opinion on how ridiculous or how good the ideas were. People tend to voice their opinions more freely amongst small groups rather to an entire class. I know I was voicing my opinion but I did not raise my hand because when I was going to raise my hand, someone else screamed out something that made me think over my decision or I would just scream something out in hoping that I was heard.

The "compete to win" method is one of the methods that I observed during this exercise. It was about 5 students that took it upon themselves to take charge and go up in front of the class to voice their opinions and to lead the class in making a final decision. I realized these 5 people are usually the ones that participate in class discussions regularly so I wasn't surprised to see them. Additionally compromise was being exercised. There was a lot of mediators trying to calm people down so ideas would be presented and voices being heard.

Observing the class actions during this exercise, I think that if we used the collaboration method from the beginning maybe there would have been a little more organization and more voices would have been heard. Maybe we could have had 5 groups and timed the group discussion to 15 minutes so that 5 ideas would have been presented and we would not have had any choice but to pick from the 5 only. We probably would have came up with a better decision.... or not.

AN EGGS-CELLENT WAY TO PLAN

This class activity I think portrayed what planning is about. At first I said to myself, "this is going to be an awful exercise because there is no way an egg can drop approximately 10ft without breaking. Being a part of the winning team definitely proved me wrong.

Of the five steps in the planning process, I would say that my group used step 4, analyze alternative and make a tactical plan. We first made a plan and then we made alternatives to see what else we can use. We had a plan that we stuck with but made worst case scenarios alternatives for about 2/3 of the time allowed to plan. But we ended up using a plan that was first introduced because while we was coming up with the scenarios, we came to the realization that the prior idea would be the best fit for this goal of not breaking the egg.

We bypassed step 2, determine current status compared to objectives. We did not identify anyone strengths and weaknesses of the group nor appointed a group leader. We just brainstormed and gave pros and cons to each idea.

I will say my team's ultimate effectiveness of the planning was overall good. We did not just shut down others ideas. We evaluated each idea and expanded from that idea to form other ideas. We all knew what the goal was and the incentive of receiving 10 points on the upcoming test was pushing us to work in a coherent manner to meet the requirements.

We could have been more effective as a group by maybe going to everyone and asking them their idea. Asking everyone for their ideas would have made the group more organized. But even though we did not do that we still managed to get things done and form strategies and prepare actions for the next stage of actually building the idea.