Decision making model analysis

¶ … decision making model that will be used involves five different steps in the decision making process. The first step implies and brief definition of the problem that an organization faces, with a complete analysis. In this way, one can make sure that everyone involved in the decision making process is aware what the problem is, what caused it and what its direct effects are.

The second step involves the examination of the problem and the right alternatives by which the problem can be solved. On many occasions, it is much easier to make the decision when the alternative solutions are clearly presented, with their advantages and disadvantages.

The third step implies making the decision. The most important part of the decision making process, making the decision can be approached either by consensus building or by the majority rule.

The fourth and fifth steps deal with implementing and evaluating the decision. The evaluation phase, for example, needs to ensure that the decision implemented deals with all aspects of the problem and functions well.

In the case of our organization, the problem is that one of the departments has two compartments which not only do the same thing, but manage to overlap one another. As such, the organization is dealing with a lack of efficiency and an unclear circuit of documents and decisions.

The two compartments, EICS and ECFMG, operate within the same department and deal with certifying international medical graduates for entry into the U.S. graduate medical education. The problem is that, while both compartments perform more or less one and the same thing, the credentials obtained at one are not interchangeable and it is often the case that the foreign students need to pay the same fee twice and have their credentials verified with both compartments.

There are several solutions that can be proposed here. The first one and simplest of all would be to make the verification process interchangeable. This will mean that the international students applying for practice in the U.S. will only have to work with one of the two separate compartments. At the same time, in back office, the two compartments will ensure that all the verification process is performed in common, so that each student has had his papers verified by one of the two.

The second option, which seems just as viable as the first, would imply merging the two compartments. This option is somewhat more complicates, because it means that the operations which are not common for the two compartments would have to be adjusted. As in any merger, the organization would have to deal with human resource issues (because the verification process was double-performed, one of the two teams needs to be reapplied within the organization), financial issues, etc.

The third option would be to create a sole compartment to deal with the verification process, a compartment that would employ human resource from both the ECFMG and the EICS. This compartment would deal only with the verification and would have several advantages. First of all, it would eliminate the original problem we had to deal with and, second of all, it would probably increase the efficiency of the compartment, with more employees and a better coordination.

In making the decision, we need to choose between deciding by majority rule and consensus building. In my opinion, in this particular case, it is best to build the appropriate consensus with all party involved. For additional information that would help the decision making process, I suggest that the international students directly involved in the process are also questioned about how they think a certain decision will have repercussions on the verification process (a poll, with a few yes/no questions can be used to determine if the changes will positively influence the students who are the direct beneficiaries of the change).

Implementing the decision s involves all the specific steps that make the decision functional within the given context of the organization. Additionally, one needs to consider (1) the resources involved in effectually performing any of the three options and (2) solutions for dealing with the applications and the verification process while the changes are taking place. Indeed, the reorganizing process will probably mean that the verification process will suffer during this period.