Title: Effective Decision Making | SkillsYouNeed
Headings: 
Decision Making
What is Decision Making?
In its simplest sense, decision-making is the act of choosing between two or more courses of action.
Intuition
Intuition is using your ‘gut feeling’ about possible courses of action.
Reasoning
Reasoning is using the facts and figures in front of you to make decisions.
Applying Both Reason and Intuition
Effective Decision-Making
An effective decision-making process, therefore, needs to ensure that you are able to do so.
What Can Prevent Effective Decision-Making?
There are a number of problems that can prevent effective decision-making. These include:
1. Not Enough Information
2. Too Much Information
3. Too Many People
4. Vested Interests
5. Emotional Attachments
6. No Emotional Attachment

Content: having so much conflicting information that it is impossible to see ‘the wood for the trees’. This is sometimes called analysis paralysis, and is also used as a tactic to delay organisational decision-making, with those involved demanding ever more information before they can decide. This problem can often be resolved by getting everyone together to decide what information is really important and why, and by setting a clear timescale for decision-making, including an information-gathering stage. 3. Too Many People
Making decisions by committee is difficult. Everyone has their own views, and their own values. And while it’s important to know what these views are, and why and how they are important, it may be essential for one person to take responsibility for making a decision. Sometimes, any decision is better than none. 4. Vested Interests
Decision-making processes often founder under the weight of vested interests.