Rational decision making brings a structured or reasonable thought process to the act of deciding. The choice to decide rationally makes it possible to support the decision maker by making the knowledge involved with the choice open and specific. This can be very important when making high value decisions that can benefit from the help of tools, processes, or the knowledge of experts.
Characteristics of rational decision making
In the ideal case, all rational decision makers would come to the same conclusion when presented with the same set of sufficient information for the decision being made. This would suggest that collaborative decision making will often employ a rational decision making process.
Characteristics of rational decision making
- Choosing rationally is often characterized by the following:
- Decision making will follow a process or orderly path from problem to solution.
- There is a single best or optimal outcome. Rational decisions seek to optimize or maximize utility.
- The chosen solution will be in agreement with the preferences and beliefs of the decision maker.
- The rational choice will satisfy conditions of logical consistency and deductive completeness.
- Decision making will be objective, unbiased and based on facts.
- Information is gathered for analysis during the decision making process.
- Future consequences are considered for each decision alternative.
- Structured questions are used to promote a broad and deep analysis of the situation or problem requiring a solution.
- Risk and uncertainty are addressed with mathematically sound approaches.
In the ideal case, all rational decision makers would come to the same conclusion when presented with the same set of sufficient information for the decision being made. This would suggest that collaborative decision making will often employ a rational decision making process.