Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions

There are a lot of books about decision making and problem solving, and the vast majority of them are mediocre. There are a number of decent, readable accounts that give some simple tips and teach you about psychological principles, but these typically have very little in the way of solid tools. We all know it gets boring when the math starts or when we have start doing drills to learn basic skills. And the more specific they get with their methods, the less useful it becomes for our own problems. Books that cater to our creative side can help us learn how to break out of ruts, but they are weaker on helping us make good decisions more consistently.Then there are systematic formal approaches by academics based on mathematical techniques, and these tend to be the equivalent of textbooks. Decision theory, mathematical modelling, strategy, optimization, probability, statistics, etc.. Great stuff. You can get a lot out of them if you put in the study, as far as useful tools and skills for hypothetical problems, but actually applying their lessons when you face a real problem is another matter. And as with most academic learning, practical transfer is left as an exercise for the reader. Also applying formal methods in situations where we already have good instincts, that often rubs us the wrong way. Using a spreadsheet to choose a mate? If you actually were to study systematic decision making and acquire the skills and habits for using those tools, you would surely make more decisions more consistently. But would you be wiser at knowing when to use these methods?Smart Choices is closer to the first type of book, a practical guide to principles, but it has the soul of a textbook. No footnotes, bibligraphy, or exercises. But it does treat the subject matter very seriously. Maybe that's also part of why many of the reviewers on Amazon found the book boring. The authors' discipline in focusing on what really works while building on solid theory is clear throughout the book. As a result of this unique approach, this book has two great strengths in my opinion.First, it is a surprisingly concise and admirably simple presentation of decision theory, with virtually no mathematics required. That's a signficant accomplishment in itself. The authors are deep experts in the technical aspects formal decision making, but have chosen a small set of simple tools to illustrate very general principles. When dealing with uncertainty, you create a risk profile for each alternative, listing the likelihood and consequences of each outcome for that alternative. Ok, not exactly rocket science, but who among us ever thinks of actually doing that to help them think through uncertainty? If you can't decide from the risk profile, you create a decision tree by identifying the things you can control and the things that remain uncertain, and their consequences. Very basic tools and advice and very powerful, with some practical advice for dealing with the messy details. It isn't so much the tools themselves that are the point here, it is the straightforward advice the authors offer on how and when to use them. There is a lot of experience condensed into a small book here.The second strength of this book is that the authors make an unusually successful effort to bridge the different kinds of decision making genres, offering not only the outline of a formal process to guide you and specific tools to use within the process, but very clear practical explanations of why the steps are done as they are. The book begins with the usual mantra of systematic decision methods: having a process is better than not having a process. Sort of like having a map is better than not having a map. Ok. But before they jump into the how-to part that makes this a small practical guide, they also make their process criteria explicit. The process must help you to:1. Focus on what's important2. be logical and consistent3. acknowledge objective and subjective factors, and blend analytical with intuitive thinking4. require only as much information and analysis as neccessary to resolve the dilemma5. encourage and guide the gathering of relevant information and informed opinion6. be straightforward, reliable, easy to use, and flexibleThis sounds great, but how can a formal decision process accomplish these things? And do the authors really provide one that manages this feat? It is their systematic and serious attempt to actually meet these 6 criteria, and their relative success at achieving it that makes for the greatest strength of this book.The way they attempt this is to define each of their process step in very flexible terms, focusing on the critical relationships between the factors. Some trigger leads you to a loose problem definition with its associated concerns. The problem definition helps you identify means objectives (how you intend to meet your concerns). Means objectives help you figure out your more fundamental objectives. The objectives help you generate alternatives that meet those objectives. Analyzing consequences in various ways helps you evaluate the alternatives and even go back to generate new ones. Alternatives often have consequences that meet different objectives in different ways, so we have ways of helping to make tradeoffs. There is a lot of theory and experience buried into these seemingly simple ideas, and it would be very easy to miss the value of this if the reader hasn't seen decision theory done less expertly in many other books. It is very easy to make the process too simple, too complicated, too rigid, or not provide enough guidance. I think the authors get it pretty much just right.The reason it works in this book, in my opinion, is that by explaining the process in clear terms and not just providing the tools, the flexibility of the process becomes much clearer. It becomes obvious from the examples why you want to keep looking for better alternatives even in the later stages of the process, even as you eliminate alternatives that just won't work or just aren't as good as others. It becomes clear where and how to consider uncertainty. It becomes more evident where various thinking traps make their way into the process by causing us to persevere at the wrong problem, by not considering important objectives, but not looking closely enough at the consequences of each alternative, by not considering tradeoffs, by missing relationships between decisions, or by failing to account for your own personal risk tolerance. The guidelines for the process help you avoid each of these problems by helping you focus on the right things at the right point in the process, but without making it so rigid that you fall into a completely different trap.There is no magic problem solving or decision making method that will solve your problems for you, but following the advice in this book will at the very least help you focus on the right things, ask the right questions at the right time during the process, and help explain your decisions better to others as well as to yourself. There are books that provide more details on specific tools, but this book stands out for its clear and practical presentation of the overall process of making decisions.

I struggle with decisions and this book revealed everything you need to know.

This book lays out a proactive approach at tackling any decision that you are faced with. If you make better decisions your quality of life will be better. The highly educated authors use a simple method for tackling a problem by dividing it and conquering it. The acronym PrOACT plus these terms: Uncertainty, Risk Tolerance, & Linked Decisions. The PrOACT stands for: P - Problem , r - nothing, O - Objectives, A - Alternatives, C - Consequences, T - Trade-offs, and the rest are self-explanatory.If you train yourself to be proactive about your decisions, you will be able to think critically and offer valid reasons for your decisions. Honestly, there is some great advice in it and will help one make better decisions. For me, I tended to skip through and skim because most of it seemed rather straightforward. This book at times was rather dull but the advice is trustworthy. I will keep this book on my shelf because I can flip right to the part that I need advice on.On last thing is the chart to help make decisions:Address the right decision problemClarify your real objectivesDevelop a range of creative alternativesUnderstand the consequences of your decisionMake appropriate tradeoffs among conflicting objectivesDeal sensibly with uncertaintiesTake account of your risk-taking attitudePlan ahead for decisions linked over timeGreat advice...

There are dozens of books on decision making for the general public by self-proclaimed experts and academics. Usually I steer clear of such books but somehow I was persuaded to buy this book because of positive reviews here as well as due to presence of Dr Howard Raiffra, one of the authors. I have read Dr Raiffra’s more academically-inclined books before and his writing has left a deep impression - I consider him as one of world’s top experts on decision making.This book is meant for the general public and written in a clear and concise manner complete with numerous realistic examples where the decision making methodologies are illustrated. The authors, despite their academic and business background, have steered cleared of using too abstract concepts and theories instead taken a more practical approach.This has resulted in a wonderful book that is both easily understood but at the same time teaches powerful concepts and methodologies for decision making in work and personal life.What I like about this book is the way the book is organized and the numerous examples provided. It makes the book easy to read and understand. The examples are realistic problems and not some text-book examples that have little to do with the real world. No complicated and complex mathematics or abstract concepts are used.I have read dozens of books on decision making and this is certainly the best book for the general public that I know of – by a country mile. It is easy and clear enough for the general reader (and even teens) but contains powerful concepts to satisfy even business professionals.I would strongly recommend this book for the general readers and business professionals who are new to the decision making. However this book is not meant for business professionals or academics looking for advanced or complex decision making.