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Decision Making: A Linear Process

by Dorothy W. Hewes
November/December 1998
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Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/decision-making-a-linear-process/5012426/

People mutter "Ooh, decisions, decisions!" even at the neighborhood pizza parlor. Everybody seems to be inundated with choices and alternatives. We obviously can't take the recommendation of that philosopher of baseball, Yogi Bera, "When faced with a fork in the road, take it." Results may be disastrous if we merely choose the road less traveled, as poet Robert Frost suggested.


Decision making has only become a popular research topic during the past 30 years. Psychologists study choices made by human and animal subjects. Statisticians develop intricate mathematical evaluations and sociologists analyze the behavior of organizations. Business management books usually focus upon ways to maximize corporate profits and minimize their losses.

All of this has had little relevance for preschool directors who juggle the roles of resource allocators, disturbance handlers, curriculum coordinators, parental advisors, and balancers of relatively small budgets. Like any other executives, however, their managerial competence is usually judged by their decision-making abilities.

Flow Chart - Decision Processing, a composite taken from several professional disciplines, was designed to help directors recognize that there is a linear system with flexibility. Since problem solving goes on constantly, this basic sequence applies to all types of decisions, whether they deal with ordering construction paper or ...

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