Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
In the work we’re doing to make the ‘bucket-list’ of sensemaking-tools more accessible to general users, occasional insights arise that make the tools themselves richer and more powerful. There’ve been a bunch of those recently from our work on SCAN,…
How do we work with change? How do we deal with change? Or cope with it? Perhaps a better metaphor would be to dance with change. That’s not a new metaphor, of course: for business-change, for example, there’s the now-classic book…
Yes, I work in and around the fringes of enterprise-architecture and the like – but my long-term background is more in medicine. So for me, one of the quiet pleasures of the new-year ‘holiday season’ is reading through the Christmas…
It’s time for another appearance on Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast. Last week’s episode, number 471, features Tom’s essay on the top 20 transformation killers. Jeremy Berriault‘s QA corner is about involving testers in the requirements process. My Form Follows Function segment rounds out the podcast, covering my post “Systems Thinking Complicates […]
The aphorism “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” is particularly apt when looking at businesses or governments that aren’t doing as well as they should. Intending to do something is not the same as actually doing it. … Continue reading →
Thanks to the rise of empowered consumers, products and experiences that once seemed improbable, such as (literally) instant delivery, are now integral to our lives. But this era of innovation has also seen its fair share of flops: From Pokémon Go to Google Glass, technologies that looked like promising disrupters stalled quickly or generated more […]
I’ve had the honor and pleasure of appearing as a regular on Tom Cagley‘s SPaMCast podcast for almost three years now. Before I write one of my “Form Follows Function on SPaMCast x” posts, I always listen to the podcast to make sure that the summary is right (the implication being, relying purely on […]
Delighted to say I’ve just published my ‘business-novel’ Changes. Hooray! More details are at https://leanpub.com/tb-changes . Here’s the cover: And here’s the blurb: Marco has a new job: Head of Organizational Change. But his bright new plan to bring the company into the…
What has happened to the practice of having a vision, determining goals and objectives, defining a need, establishing benefits then making good decisions. Recently an email sent by the Australian Prime Minister indicated that expenditure on education in Australia would … Continue reading →
In one of my earlier posts about technical debt, I differentiated between intentional debt (that taken on deliberately and purposefully) and accidental debt (that which just accrues over time without rhyme or reason or record). Dealing with (in the sense of evaluating, tracking, and resolving it) technical debt is obviously a consideration for someone in […]
People like easy answers. Why spend time analyzing and evaluating when you can just take some thing or some technique that someone else has already put to use and be done with it? Why indeed? I mean, “me too” is a valid strategy, right? And we don’t want people to get off message, right? And […]
In my previous discussion of the ACPO national decision model (May 2014), I promised to return to the methodological question, namely what theories of decision-making would be relevant to NDM and any other decision models. I have just happened upon a doctoral thesis by Maxwell Mclean looking at the decision-making by coroners, which analyses local variation in coronial outcomes at three decision-making stages: whether to report the death, whether to advance to inquest, and the choice of inquest conclusion.
Mclean notes that there is no decision-making model for coroners equivalent to the police national decision model and focussed on standards and consistency of outcome. He finds other examples of decision-making models in nursing (Lewinson and Truglio-Londrigan, 2008; Husted and Husted, 1995; Jasper, Rosser and Mooney, 2013); social work (O’Sullivan, 2011; Taylor, 2010); and probation work (Carter, 1967; Rosecrance, 1985). However, several of these are descriptive models rather than normative models.
Within the professions mentioned by Mclean, I found a lot more work on evidence-based nursing as well as some interesting international discussions on decision-making within offender supervision. Looking further afield, I was interested to find an article about a decision-making model in the US Army, but this turned out to be merely a polemical article by a former Navy Seal advocating the use of Design Thinking.
Rosecrance introduces an interesting concept of the Ball Park, where a professional decision is influenced by the anticipated reaction of a more senior professional. For example, the decisions of a probation officer are not solely designed to achieve the desired outcomes for the client, but also designed to meet the approval of (1) judges, (2) prosecuting attorneys, and (3) probation supervisors. When a recommendation seems likely to meet the approval of these three entities, it is said to be “in the ball park”. The “ball park” concept is also used in sales negotiations, and this hints at the idea that the focus here is on “selling” (or at least defending) the decision rather than just making it.
Coming back to the police, this frames the NDM not just as a way of making the best decision but also avoiding censure if anything goes wrong. See my post on the National Decision Model and Lessons Learned (February 2017).
Miranda Boone and Martine Evans, Offender supervision and decision-making in Europe (Offender Supervision in Europe: Decision-Making and Supervision Working Group, 2013)
Jeff Boss, The Army’s New Decision-Making Model (Forbes, 8 August 2014)
Carter, R.M. (1967). The presentence report and the decision making process. Journal of
research in crime and delinquency. 4 203-211.
Jasper, M., Rosser, M., Mooney, G. (Eds.) (2013). Professional Development, Reflection
and Decision-Making in Nursing and Health Care (2nd ed.). Swansea: Wiley Blackwell.
Husted, G.L. and Husted, I.H. (1995). Ethical decision-making in nursing (2nd ed.). St
Louis: Mosby.
Lewenson, S.B. and Truglio-Londrigan, M. (2008). Decision-Making in Nursing, thoughtful approaches for practice. London: Jones and Bartlett Publishers International.
Maxwell Mclean, The Coroner in England and Wales; Coronial Decision-Making and Local Variation in Case Outcomes (Doctoral Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2015)
O’Sullivan, T. (2011). Decision making in social work (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan
Rosecrance, J. (1985). The Probation Officers’ Search for Credibility: Ball Park
Recommendations. Journal of research in crime and delinquency. 31, (4) 539-554.
Mooi Standing, Perceptions of clinical decision-making: a matrix model (May 2010). This appears to be a chapter from Mooi Standing (ed) Clinical Judgement and Decision-Making in Nursing and Inter-professional Healthcare (McGraw Hill, 2010)
Taylor, B. (2010). Professional Decision-Making in Social Work. Exeter: Learning Matters.
Carl Thompson et al, Nurses, information use, and clinical decision making—the real world potential for evidence-based decisions in nursing (Evidence-Based Nursing Vol 7 No 3, July 2004) http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ebn.7.3.68
Related posts
National Decision Model (May 2014)
National Decision Model and Lessons Learned (Feb 2017)
Updated 4 March 2017