People-focused knowledge management

Single-Stage and Multistage Decision-Making
The function of the Decision-Making/Problem-Solving task is 
to determine or create and select appropriate action-options to be
implemented. The functional task path that is pursued depends upon
the decision maker’s familiarity with the situation at hand and its
importance. As indicated in Figure 5-5, the functional task path may
be single stage for simple Decision-Making when the decision maker
possesses concrete mental model templates to deal with familiar sit-
uations. In less well-known situations, she is likely to engage in mul-
tistage complex Decision-Making or even novel Problem-Solving. For
situations that are perceived to involve conditions beyond her or the
organization’s operational experience and knowledge, it may not be
possible to make single-stage decisions to determine how it should
be handled. In these instances, deciding the desired action cannot be
determined by regular, simple Decision-Making by operationalizing
previous experiences memorized as mental reference models or tem-
plates. Instead, the desired action must be determined through more
innovative and complex multistage Decision-Making or Problem-
Solving processes.
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People-Focused Knowledge Management
Table 5-2
Situation Understanding governs the mode of Decision-Making/
Problem-Solving; that is, how the tasks are performed and which kinds of mental
reference models are used.
Situation Understanding
Dominant Decision-Making/Problem-Solving Mode
Categories
Situation is unimportant
No Decision, No Action Needed
Situation is too difficult 
Decision: No Action Possible
to handle
Situation is routine and