IntroductionThe intent of this essay is the relate the findings of the members of Team B during their individual participation in the University of Phoenix critical thinking simulation as participants in the fictitious Credenhill Industries Thorough-Cred management development program (2008). Specific attention will be focused on the tools used by the simulation to frame the problems, make the decisions, and evaluate the outcomes of the decisions as compared with what the individual members of the team would use. In the context of this, we will demonstrate how the various tools employed by the team members contributed to different outcomes than those employed in the simulation and report on the various results obtained by the team members.
Credenhill Industries -vs- Team B Decision Making ToolsFraming the ProblemThe University of Phoenix 9-Step Decision Making Process begins with the framing of the problem and this is what was addressed in the beginning of the simulation.
Decision Making Chart
Simplyfied example: Decision Trees can improve inv...
English: The French economist Jules Dupuit (1804-1...The simulation used a variance of value analysis called an urgency-criticality matrix to frame the problems and assist in the focus of efforts. This was accomplished by differentiating problems from fallacies. The net result was the identification of legal problems, product mix, a new store opening up in the area, employees unsatisfied with pay, and lastly, recurring issues with the corporate WAN used to transmit inventory and sales data (University of Phoenix, 2008).
Each team member was able to come up with these issues as definite problems, however, the tools used varied from the perhaps over-simplified matrix. Overall consensus was that a more qualified method, such as a decision tree would have been more valuable for isolating the critical and urgent issues from the non-critical and non-urgent items. The decision tree "would help management to form a balanced picture of the risks and rewards associated with...