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Decision Making: Course outline (UR-402)

Course description

We all make decisions, all the time. Some of them are not particularly important, but others are. Imagine how much better your life would be if all of your important decisions were as good as they realistically could be. Although this is an unattainable goal, we can all learn to improve our decision making. And if we improve by even a small amount, we will be better off and so will many other people. That is what this course is about: making your decisions better so that you and everyone else can benefit.

General learning objectives

At the end of this course students will be able

  • To learn and understand the basic concepts of decision making.
  • To critically examine alternative frameworks for assessing decision-making processes, models and frameworks for managerial decision-making.
  • To use concepts of decision making in their personal and professional life by identifying problems and ultimately resolving them through proper decision making framework.
  • To know the concepts and theories of decision making from Islamic perspective.

Course content

Week 1 Introduction to managerial decision making

Week 2 Fundamentals of making good decisions

Learning outcomes:

  • Our Decisions Shape Our Lives
  • Declaring a Decision What Kind of Decision is this?
  • Defining a Good Decision
  • The Good Decision Checklist
  • The What and the How of Good Decisions

Week 3 Fundamentals of making good decisions

Learning outcomes:

  • Process for Making Good Decision
  • Balancing Head and Heart
  • Know Yourself
  • Avoid Traps and Biases
  • Become Decision Fit
  • Keep Learning
  • Decision Roles
  • Individual Process Worksheet and Group Process

Islamic content

  • Decision making from Islamic perspective
  • Quran and decision making

Week 4 The decision making pocket book

Learning outcomes:

  • Introduction
  • A framework for decision making
  • decision support analysis

Week 5 The decision making pocket book

Learning outcomes:

  • Psychology of decision making
  • Communicating a decision
  • Conclusion

Week 6 Decision making and problem solving strategies

Learning outcomes:

  • Your mind at work
  • The art of effective decision making
  • Sharing decisions with others

Week 7 Decision making and problem solving strategies

Learning outcomes:

  • Key problem-solving strategies
  • How problems differ from decisions
  • A unified model for decision making and problem solving
  • Asking the right questions
  • How to approach systems problems

Week 8 Decision making and problem solving strategies

Learning outcomes:

  • How to generate ideas
  • Thinking outside the box
  • Developing your thinking skills

Related books

Learning outcomes

To have greater insight into one’s own decision-making processes and those of others; to be able to use that insight to make more effective decisions; to possess a range of different perspectives on what counts as an ‘effective’ decision; to be better equipped to understand and influence the decision-making processes of other individuals and groups; and to understand better how people perceive and decide about risk.

Course content

Week 10: Perception, memory and context

Learning outcomes:

  • Selective Perception
  • Cognitive Dissonance
  • Memory and Hindsight Biases
  • Context Dependence

Islamic content:

  • Characteristics of Muslim decision makers

Week 11: How questions affect answers

Learning outcomes:

  • Plasticity
  • The Effects of Question Wording and Framing

Week 12: Models of decision making

Learning outcomes:

  • Expected Utility Theory
  • Paradoxes in Rationality
  • Descriptive Models of Decision Making

Week 13: Heuristics and biases

Learning outcomes:

  • The Representativeness Heuristic
  • The Availability Heuristic
  • Probability and Risk
  • Anchoring and Adjustment

Week 14: Heuristics and biases

Learning outcomes:

  • The Perception of Randomness
  • Attribution Theory
  • Social Influences
  • Group Judgments and Decisions

Week 15: Project report submission and presentations

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