How to Make a Good Decision Quickly
Last time around I wrote about the process of making better decisions. One way I suggested that we could do this was by employing a decision making framework. For example, first we collect all the facts, then we come up with possible options, next we evaluate the options and then we choose the best one. But that takes time — a lot of time. Or we could employ a mental model, which is to say we’re using a template that acts as a cognitive short cut to make the decision quicker. However, there are literally hundreds of mental models out there to know. How do we remember them all and how do we know which one to use?
Isn’t there a faster way to make a good decision in those times where we are constrained by time and by uncertainty?
The answer may come from Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM). As a field of study, NDM arose in the 80s to describe how people actually make decisions in the real world (versus the more typical research methods that exposed unsuspecting subjects to aptitude and cognitive tests that they may have had little or no expertise in. Military leaders, nuclear power plant operators, nurses, highway engineers and airplane pilots were some of the typical professionals studied. Through NDM research it was found that people in real world situations rarely used a decision making framework (i.e., collect facts, create options, evaluate and choose). Instead they used their experience to quickly categorize and decide. They were relying on some sort of compilation of their experience in those situations — call them schemas or, like I mentioned above, mental models.
So that may help us potentially answer part of the question: can we make faster decisions? Yes, we can but we will still be employing some form of mental model to help us cut through the noise and decide quicker. We still need some forms of representation of the problem and how it could be solved. Therefore, experience and the development of expertise is important in learning to make fast decisions via intuition.
Okay then, what does this quick and intuitive form of decision making look like?
One particular model, Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD), within Naturalistic Decision Making is worth looking at to help answer that question. Using experience to size up the situation, RPD shows that professionals making important decisions in complex situations rely on patterns that they’ve built up over many years. Recognizing the pattern meant the individual could overlay the correct solution for that problem. RPD helps to answer questions like what are the cues we need to pay attention to (or ignore) or what goals should we pursue or what actions should we take. The answers to these sorts of questions can be found in the relevant cues that emerge within the particular situation we face. In other words, we can see patterns.
But what if the problem was not as familiar to the individual? In these situations, professionals in real world contexts use a form of mental simulation. They pick a solution that they think might work and then imagine it in action in their minds. If they see it being relatively successful they pick it. If they don’t they move on to another option. This is known as satisficing. A cognitive short cut that involves going with the first option we can find that reasonably, but not perfectly, solves the problem.
This, RPD suggests, is how we evaluate options without directly comparing one option to the next and weighing their pro’s and con’s like in more traditional decision making approaches. We evaluate by playing the option out in our mind. If it reasonably contributes to solving the problem then we can start coming up with ways to modify it in order to make it work completely. This process shows a combination of fast and slow thinking. The pattern matching is the intuitive part and the mental simulation as vehicle for evaluation is the more analytical and slow part.
However, the intuitive part is not something that novices in their fields will be as good at doing. They need time to recognize the various patterns in their domain and build up a repertoire of the successful ones. While we can learn to make quick decisions intuitively, it does require that we know a great deal about the area in which the problem is based. Otherwise, fast thinking can get us into trouble by letting us take a short cut that may leave us without all the correct patterns or blind to some of the important cues for solving a particular problem.
Here’s a brief interview with Dr. Gary Klein, the creator of Recognition-Primed Decision speaking about the model.
