Evidence-Based Management
Evidence-based Decision Process
Denise M. Rousseau
H.J. Heinz II University Professor of Organizational Behavior
Carnegie Mellon University
denise@cmu.edu
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Five Good EBMgt Habits
#4 Become “Decision Aware”
 Identify different kinds of decisions you face.
What kinds of different approaches are used to
make them? Why?
 How can you determine whether you made a
“good decision” when you cannot know the
outcome?
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What Is “Decision Quality”?
 Discuss a management decision you made
within last year you are particularly proud
of….
 Why are you proud of it?
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Five Good EBMgt Habits
“Decision Awareness” Promotes Decision Quality
To manage decisions, know what decisions must be
made.
A TASK FOR TODAY:Map those decisions in your area
that affect key outcomes.
 Who is responsible? (Are they prepared?)
 What information is required? (Will it be available when
needed?)
Periodically, revisit decision mgt and revise as needed.
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Five Good EBMgt Habits
Awareness Calls Attention to Decision Process.
Proper Processes Improve Decision Quality
 What is the process for making the decision?
 Different processes may work better depending on…
 Whether information is readily available for decision
 Whether basically same decision re-occurs
 Extent of uncertainty and unknown risk factors
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Five Good EBMgt Habits
Awareness Calls Attention to Decision Process.
Proper Processes Improve Decision Quality
ROUTINE DECISIONS
Develop an evidence-based procedure or process for making a
quality decision that can be used repeatedly.
 Validated checklists—for running an effective meeting
 Protocols--structured interview questions in hiring or promotion
WHAT REPEAT ORGANIZATIONAL DECISIONS
COULD BENEFIT FROM ROUTINIZATION?
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Five Good EBMgt Habits
Awareness Calls Attention to Decision Process.
Proper Processes Improve Decision Quality
DECISIONS WITH KNOWN UNKNOWNS
A systematic sequence of information gathering, discussion and
deliberation
WHAT IMPORTANT ORGANIZATIONAL DECISIONS
COULD BENEFIT FROM A SYSTEMATIC DECISION
PROCESS?
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Beneficiary Interests/Values
Decision
Other
Contributors
Decision Processes: Cardinal Issue Resolution
Preliminaries
1—Need
2—Mode
3—Investment
Core
4—Options
5—Possibilities
6—Judgment
7—Value
8—Tradeoffs
Aftermath
9—Acceptability
10—Implementation
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Five Good EBMgt Habits
Awareness Calls Attention to Decision Process.
Proper Processes Improve Decision Quality
FOR DECISIONS WITH UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
“YOU CANNOT FORECAST BUT YOU MAY ANTICIPATE”
- Pilot-test
- Run competing experiments and evaluate outcomes
- Learning by doing with after action reviews
WHAT ORGANIZATIONAL DECISIONS WARRANT
EXPERIMENTS OR MINDFUL LEARNING BY
DOING?
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Five Good EBMgt Habits
#5 Reflect on Decision’s Ethical
Implications
 Who are stakeholders for this decision?
 Possible effects?
 How might the decision be altered to optimize positive
stakeholder effects and reduce negative?
 ETHICAL ISSUES EXIST AT ALL STAGE OF DECISION
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Got Evidence? References
M. Blastland & A. Dilnot (2007) The Tiger that Wasn’t: Seeing through a World of Numbers. London, Profile Books.
J. Ehrlinger, K. Johnson, M. Banner, D. Dunning, J. Kruger. (2008) Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of
(absent) self-insight among the incompetent. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105,(1) pg.
98
D. Kahneman (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
E.A. Locke (ed.), Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior, 2nd edition, 2009. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
D. M. Rousseau (2012) Oxford Handbook of Evidence-Based Management, New York.
D.M. Rousseau, D.M. & E. Barends (2011) Becoming an evidence-based manager. Human Resource Management
Journal, 21, 221-235.
D.M. Rousseau, J. Manning & D. Denyer (2008) Evidence in Management and Organizational Science: Assembling the
field’s full weight of scientific knowledge through reflective reviews. Annals of the Academy of Management, 2,
475-515.
N.Silver (2012) The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail but Some Don’t. New York: Penguin.
J.F. Yates. (2003). Decision management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
J.F. Yates & M.D. Tschirhart (2006). Decision making expertise. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich, & R. R.
Hoffman. (Eds.). Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 421-438). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
J.F. Yates, E.S. Veinott & A.L. Patalano (2003). Hard decisions, bad decisions: On decision quality and decision aiding.
In S. L. Schneider & J. C. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 13-63).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
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