People-focused knowledge management

Decision:
No Action
Handling Uncertain
Figure 5-4
Situation understanding categories govern the nature of Decision-Making/Problem-
Solving and the type of the selected action-options. Copyright © 2002 Knowledge
Research Institute, Inc. Reproduced with permission.
ch05.qxd 5/3/04 2:34 PM Page 135

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136
P
eople
-F
ocused
K
no
wledge
M
ana
gement
Decision-Making/Problem-Solving
Multi-Stage Decision-Making
Single-Stage Decision-Making
Situation
Understanding
form
Sensemaking
Novel 
Problem-Solving
Final Decision:
Selection of
Action-Option to
Be Implemented
Action-
Options
Decision:
Selected
Action-
Option
Complex
Decision-Making
Simple
Decision-Making
Situation
Understanding
Categories
– Familiarity –
– Importance –
Situation Is
Novel and
Important
Situation
Follows Scripts
and General
Patterns
Situation Is
Routine and
Well Known
Figure 5-5
In familiar situations, selecting the action-option to be implemented is performed by simple, single-stage
Decision-Making. In more complex and important cases, the final decision is obtained by multistage
Decision-Making or Problem-Solving. Copyright © 2002 Knowledge Research Institute, Inc. Reproduced
with permission.

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A K
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Situ
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-H
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Table 5-3
Examples of conditions that improve or impede Decision-Making/Problem-Solving.
Examples of Conditions that Affect Decision-Making/Problem-Solving
Conditions
Positive Influences
Negative Influences
Understanding Enterprise
Understanding enterprise strategy —
Not understanding strategy properly —
Strategy
Facilitates rank and file to make decisions that
Leads to inability to implement enterprise 
serve to implement enterprise strategy.
strategy.
General Understanding of 
Understanding immediate (first order) intents,
Lack of general understanding of first and 
First and Higher Order
goals, objectives, priorities, and enterprise
higher order pursuits —
Goals, etc.
long-term and stakeholder (higher order)
Leads to creation and selection of 
intents, goals, objectives, priorities —
ineffective and often wrong action-options 
Leads to creation and selection of more
that may conflict with enterprise strategy 
relevant and appropriate action-options.
and intents.
Possessing Task-Specific
Good task-specific and operational knowledge
Inadequate task-specific and operational 
and Operational
in the forms of extensive libraries of mental
knowledge —
Knowledge
models, etc. —
Even with good situation understanding, 
Leads to handling wide ranges of routine
leads to multi-stage Decision-Making or 
decisions with single-stage Decision-Making.
Problem-Solving when not needed.