Decision Making - Decision Making Steps

Decision Making Steps

Each step in the decision making process may include social, cognitive and cultural obstacles to successfully negotiating dilemmas. It has been suggested that becoming more aware of these obstacles allows one to better anticipate and overcome them. The Arkansas Program presents eight stages of moral decision making based on the work of James Rest:

  1. Establishing community: creating and nurturing the relationships, norms, and procedures that will influence how problems are understood and communicated. This stage takes place prior to and during a moral dilemma
  2. Perception: recognizing that a problem exists
  3. Interpretation: identifying competing explanations for the problem, and evaluating the drivers behind those interpretations
  4. Judgment: sifting through various possible actions or responses and determining which is more justifiable
  5. Motivation: examining the competing commitments which may distract from a more moral course of action and then prioritizing and committing to moral values over other personal, institutional or social values
  6. Action: following through with action that supports the more justified decision. Integrity is supported by the ability to overcome distractions and obstacles, developing implementing skills, and ego strength
  7. Reflection in action
  8. Reflection on action

Other decision making processes have also been proposed. One such process, proposed by Dr. Pam Brown of Singleton Hospital in Swansea, Wales, breaks decision making down into seven steps:

  1. Outline your goal and outcome.
  2. Gather data.
  3. Develop alternatives (i.e., brainstorming)
  4. List pros and cons of each alternative.
  5. Make the decision.
  6. Immediately take action to implement it.
  7. Learn from and reflect on the decision.

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