Business Decision Analysis Assignment Sample

Business Decision Analysis Assignment

Part A: Comparative Review Report

Executive Summary

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This comparative review report aimed at reviewing and summarising the business decision-making scenario of Grampians Integrated Cancer Service (GICS) regarding the establishment and fostering of the Multidisciplinary Meetings (MDM). The report elaborated on the case study regarding the establishment and fostering of the Multidisciplinary Meetings (MDM). An investigation of the decision-making process was done in order to determine the advantages and disadvantages by using the decision-making model in the given case.

Introduction

Decision-making is an inclusive part and a primary function of business management. Decisions are a vital part of an organisation as they help in the earmarking of the managerial and organisational activities. A decision is characterised by the course of action that is chosen from a number of alternatives in order to accomplish the organisational goals. The process of decision-making is indispensable and continuous. To elaborate more on the decision-making process, a case study ofGrampians Integrated Cancer Service (GICS) regarding the establishment and fostering of the Multidisciplinary Meetings (MDM). To deepen the understanding of the same, an investigation of the decision-making process will be done in order to determine the advantages and disadvantages of using the model in the business case.

Company Overview

Grampians Integrated Cancer Service (GICS) is one of the leading medical and health service providers in the Grampians region of Australia. The organisation is focused to improve the existing cancer care services and systems. In other words, the company act as an instrument for the change in the relationship with the community, private, and public health services providers.

Decision-Making in Medical and health-care sector

In medical and healthcare organisations, Multi-Disciplinary Meeting (MDM) are required to choose certain relevant alternatives and make a decision altogether regarding prognosis, diagnosis, or giving the type of treatment to a patient. Such strategies are turning out to be very effective rather than the ones that are taken up by a sole physician. In addition to this, the MDMs are very effective in improvising the interdisciplinary communication that can help in the training of junior doctors (Shulman, et.al, 2013). MDMs provide exposure to the professionals, thereby providing them opportunities and possibilities of another discipline. Many research studies have proven that MDMs can have many benefits, but one has to consider this fact also that they are highly dependent on the team member's effective participation. In other words, the quality of MDM is largely dependent on the effective and relevant support of the participants in the decision-making process.

According to Raikundalia, and Sharma (2013), many participants think that a large amount of time gets wasted in discussing the issue. This makes it an inappropriate option in the time of emergency when the time is very less. However, the majority of survey results show that participants think it a logical method of making a decision in a business setting. Even though it is a group discussion activity, some participants always show dominance over the other due to their powers and authority (Yin,2013). In this section, a case study is chosen regarding the use of MDM approach in medical treatment and procedures. The case study consists of a theoretical model, namely Reasoning Community Model for analysing MDMs effectively (Yearwood &Stranieri,2012).

Reasoning community model

This model was given in order to describe the set of activities that are performed by the team members responsible to make decisions. The team is also called the reasoning community and its main functions include communicating among themselves, reasoning individually, and attempting to combine the reason in order to reach a sound decision and problem-solving (Stranieri &Yearwood,2012). This model consists of several phases and therefore, it is very broad and vast topic. The four phases are as follow:-

• Community Engagement
• Individual Reasoning
• Group Collaboration
• Decision-making

To understand and explore the impact of employing MDMs in the business organisation, GICS conducted partially structured interviews. The main aim of these interviews was to get an idea of how each phase of the model is conducted. The meetings were held regularly and the observer acted as a spectator in the meeting. The identity of the observer was not disclosed in order to keep the nature of the team members unchanged. Overall 27 cases' observations were discussed in three different MDMs. By making use of the data collected from partially structured interviews, the coordinator can get the idea of the current MDM process. In addition to this, it would enable them to express their perspective and share their experiences (Yearwood &Stranieri,2012). In order to carry out the quantitative analysis, the observation notes made by the observer in the MDMs and the notes made by the coordinator were brought into use. The following information was very effective in analysing the current MDM process and reflecting the usefulness of the model.

Generally, 5 to 8 members attended the MDM by being physically present in the meeting. In the meeting, a discussion was done on each patient and the time of discussion varied based on the seriousness of the case. At the end of every discussion, the treatment plan or medication course was suggested. The treatment plans and recommendations were sent to the Health Information System in order to add the information in the patient’s record or database. Once all of this was done, the treatment recommendations were told to the patient and they were implemented only after the patient gave the consent to them.

Analysis of MDMs employed by GICS using Four Phase Reasoning Community Model

Engagement Phase: This is the first phase and it aims at preparing the team members for group reasoning activity. It consists of five major processes, namely problem specification, selecting the members, communication and decision-making protocol, and the last is assuming the future audience that can make use of the current reasoning. The overall aim of this phase is to make a diversified team in order to have varying thinking people in the team. The overall effectiveness of this phase lies in the

Individual Reasoning: In this phase, each member of the team carry out individual brainstorming in order to find out the solution to a given problem. Here, a member develops a sense of the case. The solutions are given based on the prior experience and knowledge. In GICS, each and every member was equipped with the case details while they were in the meeting. Based on their understanding, the individual member gives their reasoning (Yin,2013).

Coalesced Reasoning: In this phase, the members share their perceptions and club them together in order to reach a common understanding. In addition to this, the stage is characterised by problem analysis giving a supporting argument to the problem, generating alternatives, and assessing the consequences of each solution. In GICS, this phase takes place in a group meeting. In this phase, the members discuss a problem face-to-face. This facilitation of the meeting is very challenging and the coordinators are trained specially for this role.

Decision-Making: Once all the considerable information and deliberations are made, the final decision-making takes place. There are many decision-making protocols that are brought into use while making the final decision, such as voting. The final decision in case GICS comes out as a treatment plan for the patient. If any member questions about the medication course, then the case is discussed in the subsequent meetings.

Advantages of Reasoning Community Model

• Employing this model would give more information and would provide a varying solution to a problem.
• The decisions taken by the team have more acceptance in contrast to the ones taken by an individual (Kane, et.al, 2017).
• The group decisions often consist of the suggestions given by the field experts. This increases the credibility of the decision
• Every member of the team feels valued being a part of the decision-making process. It helps in strengthening the organisation and facilitating the decision-making.
• It improves the people participating in an organisation as it facilitates their thoughts and ideas in decision-making.

Disadvantages of Reasoning Community Model

• Since the team in this model consist of many members. Therefore, planning, organising and coordinating become a very challenging task.
• In addition to this, the process becomes very time-consuming and this can affect the group dynamics.
• The fixation of the responsibility in this model is very difficult as nobody wants to take the onus.
• It is often noticed that the discussion is highly controlled by the ones with the authority in the hand (Campbell,2014).
• The process consumes a lot of money, man-hours, and the company's resources.

Conclusion

Decision-making process in very simple words can be defined as the process of making a decision on a particular aspect together in a group. Before ending on a high note, all the topics covered in this report are recapped. This report discussed a case study of Grampians Integrated Cancer Service (GICS) regarding the establishment and fostering of the Multidisciplinary Meetings (MDM). To deepen the understanding of the same, an investigation of the decision-making process will be done in order to determine the advantages and disadvantages of using the model in the business case.

Part B: Decision Model Proposal

Introduction

There are various reasons for implementing a business model. It can help in resolving the issues or challenges related to the business. The decision-making model can assist in discarding the biases and showcase the opportunities that are important for the business. To elaborate more on the importance of decision-making models, two important models will be discussed in this report that is commonly used in the medical field. These models are The Rational decision-making model and the OODA loop decision-making model. Both of them will be discussed in the context of the Grampians Integrated Cancer Service (GICS).

Rational Decision-Making Model

The rational decision-making model is one of the widely used and most structure or sequenced decision-making models. The business organisations use this approach to make sure that the decision made by the management is consistent and disciplined. This model provides a rationality and order to the process of decision-making. This model comprises a number of steps that discuss the beginning or identification of the process and ends with the proposal to resolve the problem or issue. This section discusses the rational decision-making model in a detailed manner.

As it is already discussed that the rational decision-making model has a serious of steps that are designed to develop a rational solution. These steps are given in figure 1.

(Figure 1: Steps in Rational Decision-Making)

(Source: NCBI, 2017)

Identification of the issue or opportunity: This is the very first step of the rational decision-making model is to explore and identify the opportunities or problems that may affect the business. In GICS, the team coordinator's duty is to look at what factors are hindering the process of creating the effective treatment plan for the patient. If there is a problem, then the coordinator moves to the next stage (Levit, et.al, 2013).

Gathering relevant information: Here, the coordinator should make use of his/her experience in order to decide what information is relevant and what is not. This would help the team coordinator working at GICS make the right decision for the betterment of the organisation.

Analysing the Situation: This stage requires the coordinator to critically analyse the situation. He should look for the available alternatives solution. Since the data is already available with him, he should look at it from a different perspective in order to generate a distinct understanding of the case. For this purpose, he can make use of a set of well-structured questions in order to incentivise the deep analysis of the current issue or challenge.

Developing alternatives: Once the coordinator analyses the identified challenge, the next step is to develop options for the same. This requires the creative skills and experience of the coordinators (Cassel & Guest, 2012). The important thing to note here is that the alternative solution should support the goals and objectives of GICS.

Evaluating Alternatives: Since there is a number of alternatives available after the group decision, the real challenge that the coordinator faces is how to evaluate each alternative in order to get the best out of good options. GICS has the well-experienced and well-trained team coordinators that evaluate the desirability, acceptability, and feasibility of the alternatives.

Choosing the most appropriate alternative: The most difficult task for any team coordinator is to choose the most appropriate alternative among the available options. One has to analyse the positive and negative impacts of the chosen alternative on the business organisation.

Decision-making: Once the alternative is decided, the final decision of implementing that alternatives in operating the business task are taken. This done once the coordinator cross checks the allocation of the resources has been done or not.

Strengths of Rational Decision-making model

• The rational decision-making model employs the data obtained scientifically in order to make a well-informed and sound decision. This also decreases the chances of errors, reduces guesswork and assumptions (Berwick & Hackbarth, 2012).
• This method discards all the factors that cause poor judgement. This method promotes high-quality decisions and decreases the risk related to the decision
• Being the most structure or sequenced decision-making models, this approach ensures that the decision made by the management is consistent and disciplined.
• This method attends the complex decision making by breaking down the problem into simple steps.

Weaknesses of rational decision-making model

• The rational decision making is done with the utmost deliberation and consideration of the information. This requires a lot of time and the organisation's resources. This model cannot be used where there is a requirement of immediate action.
• In addition to this, delay in making the decisions can lead to a dilution of the opportunities and benefits for the organisation.
• This model can only be implemented where there is a need for formulating the long-term policies (Berwick & Hackbarth, 2012).

OODA Loop decision-making tool

This OODA loop is decision making cycle of observation, decision, orientation and action which is developed by military strategist Colonel John Boyd. It is now applied to getting understand trading operations and functions of the learning process. This OODA tool is based in strategic and tactical agility. It is analyses that an organization must move faster than its competitors but also thinks faster than such competitors. It also helps and supports in creating, developing and improving the multi-disciplinary meetings of the Grampians Integrated Cancer Service.

The Agile Model of decision making: the pace of decision making becomes more difficult for each and every organization in this unsettled and ever-changing environment. The model has provided multi-disciplinary regulations and frameworks undertaken by the company to execute leadership, organizational and team agility almost 16 years. The focus made by this model on decision making speed presented by starting the action that is one of the best key drivers of The Agile model. It is very effective and useful in multi-disciplinary actions and meetings of the Grampians Integrated Cancer Service (Mai, et. al., 2017). It has determined that five features required for a company to be capable of responding and anticipating to changing needs and following to new demands. The five drivers of the agile model are as follows:

‘Anticipate change: interpret the best effective impact of cancer service business trends and turbulence with the execution to the organization. The anticipating change needs to pay attention to several dynamic situations in the whole environment of the organization involving macroeconomic, cultural and political developments, consumer and customer demands along with internal strategic, workforce and financial factors.

Create confidence: Generate a culture of engagement and confidence with all connected stakeholders particularly associates in a collaborative and effective team of the Grampians Integrated Cancer Service. Creating confidence needs you to define challenges and problems in respect to every individual and team capacities with trust, high octane involvement, and commitment. It is very effective in the decision-making process of the company when there are several issues to be sorted. It also requires a sound process for involving, aligning and connecting the people of the organization (Obeidat, et. al., 2015).

Initiate action: To provide the best tools and techniques along with fuel to enable things to make it happen responsively and proactively at all sections of the Grampians Integrated Cancer Service. Initiating act needs to ensure that there is a very good aimed mindset which fosters an urgency sense to get materials done well with positive accountability for making so. It is a very effective process for decision making action with collaboration and capability, as well as bias for action (Mai, et. al., 2017).

Liberate thinking: Develop the conditions and climate for fresh and unique solutions by encouraging, empowering, expecting and teaching others to develop new technologies for the treatment of cancer and to be innovative. Liberating thinking supports and ensures to be open to adopting new technologies and ideas from connected stakeholders and the methods to accept such innovation. It is also very effective proves for reducing the biases in the decision-making process and focusing on patients and customers with the diversification of ideas.

Evaluate results: In this step, maintaining the feedback analysis with a strong focus to regularly improve and learn from different actions and changing the organization dynamics after the decision-making process.in evaluating results evaluation of results needs you to define the typical metrics for groom and success and to get learn proper knowledge and relevant facts to enhance the actions of Grampians Integrated Cancer Service. There is a requirement to generate the expectations and actual time feedback from measures depends on facts. So it’s analysed that this model is very effective (Obeidat, et. al., 2015).

Conclusion

Here, the importance of the decision-making model in the business environment was noticed. To elaborate more on this, two very important decision-making model was taken, namely The Rational decision-making model and the OODA loop decision-making model. Both of them were elaborated in the context of theGrampians Integrated Cancer Service (GICS). Based on the information gathered about the organisation, it was shown that how the decision-making model could assist in discarding the biases and showcase the opportunities that are important for the business.

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