OVERCOMING BIASES

Overcoming Biases in Decision Making

Overcoming Biases in Decision Making

Introduction

Research has revealed that the way in which the brain works can cause us for making flawed judgments. People, attempting to understand a complex world, deploy “heuristics.” (See Appendix). The difficulty lies in the fact that heuristics, while well intentioned, might cause bias. Bias - a distortion that affects judgment - can promptly cause good decision making to go bad.

(See appendix for types of biases and their definitions)

Our thesis

The decision making biases can be minimized by overcoming heuristics.

Discussion

Two methods are suggested to overcome biases. One is scenario planning or scenario thinking processes as an antecedent to policy assessment, and the other is, the use of web- and game-based media to support involvement from non-conventional players in the decision-making process. (Cohen, 1990)

Scenario planning is a controlled stakeholder involvement process intended to tackle issues that are tentative, irregular and complex. Considering such circumstances, the “illusion of certainty” and the “tyranny of the past” are considered the biggest obstructions to preparation for the challenges forward. Peter Schwartz from the Global Business Networks, one of the most well-known scenario planners, focuses that scenario planning consists significantly in challenging overriding insights of “the official future”. Deployed to battle the “perils of too narrow thinking”, scenario procedures engage endeavors to include information from the “fringes” to merge numerous credible projections of future. (Cohen, 1990)

By deliberately deploying storyline strategies, scenarios represent the future as a series of convincing and conceivable projections. “Scenarios are not forecasts. This approach has exhibited repeated effectiveness at fighting cognitive bias in senior management and corporate staff, while empirical dimension of its effects is still exceptional. Existing evidence, where available, and vital subjective support from clients and practitioners, suggests that the method is successful at opening up a range of options up ...