Cookies help us display personalized product recommendations and ensure you have great shopping experience.

By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    big data analytics in transporation
    Turning Data Into Decisions: How Analytics Improves Transportation Strategy
    3 Min Read
    sales and data analytics
    How Data Analytics Improves Lead Management and Sales Results
    9 Min Read
    data analytics and truck accident claims
    How Data Analytics Reduces Truck Accidents and Speeds Up Claims
    7 Min Read
    predictive analytics for interior designers
    Interior Designers Boost Profits with Predictive Analytics
    8 Min Read
    image fx (67)
    Improving LinkedIn Ad Strategies with Data Analytics
    9 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: A Pattern Language for Decision-Making
Share
Notification
Font ResizerAa
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Business Intelligence > A Pattern Language for Decision-Making
Business Intelligence

A Pattern Language for Decision-Making

Trevor Lohrbeer
Trevor Lohrbeer
7 Min Read
SHARE

Pattern languages have become all the rage. Why? Because they help codify best practices and provide a vocabulary to talk about those practices with others.

Contents
What Is A PatternUsing PatternsNext Steps

Pattern languages have become all the rage. Why? Because they help codify best practices and provide a vocabulary to talk about those practices with others. A pattern language provides a conceptual framework for understanding a practice area, explaining it to others and improving performance. Patterns become tested, reusable pieces of knowledge that help people avoid the mistakes of others and increase their chance of success.

So why a pattern language for decision-making? Despite years of research and dozens of techniques in how to make good decisions, most decision-making is still ad-hoc, done by gut feel or with custom processes, with no documentation and little awareness of the best techniques to apply to a given decision. Certainly, some industries have excelled at certain types of decisions. Allocation decisions are well understood in financial services when trying to optimize a portfolio. But without a pattern language to talk about these decisions, it is difficult to share best practices across industries.

I aim to change that. By documenting, naming and classifying types of decisions, the situations surrounding those decisions and the types of analysis used to support those decisions, we can create a pattern language and decision-making framework that can help people learn, track and improve their decision-making.

More Read

benefits of hiring an illustrator that knows AI
Benefits of Hiring Professional Illustrators that Use AI
Top 10 Excuses to Avoid Business Rules: #1 You want business users to do what?!
Customer Churn and Retention
Apple’s iLife ‘09 software suite will include a…
Master Data Management: Does an Effective Solution Exist?

 

What Is A Pattern

A pattern is an abstract description of a problem, situation or process that repeats itself in different forms, all of which share common sets of characteristics. For instance, buying a car and buying a house are both decisions where you have many options, but must pick only one. We can abstract this into a Select One Option pattern, so we can apply similar decision-making techniques to both. The pattern is named, so we can refer to it in discussions, and it has a definition that helps us identify the pattern and the best techniques to apply to decisions which match the pattern.

Patterns have different components. Just like recipes have separate sections for ingredients, instructions and nutritional info, a decision pattern might have separate sections for how to identify the pattern, the best types of analysis to use for the decision, what situations the decision pattern occurs under and how to track the effectiveness of the decision. For now, the components of a decision pattern are going to be in flux; as I and others document patterns, we’ll come to a standard set of components that most decision patterns should have.

Using Patterns

Patterns are not meant to be exact formulas that describe how to solve a problem. Patterns are more like Legos, building blocks that can be combined together to create a solution or make a decision. Let’s look at how a decision pattern might be applied.

Imagine two situations.

First, we have Tom, a real estate developer. Tom bought a piece of property in the middle of the housing boom and started building a luxury house, hoping to sell it at the top of the market and make a bunch of money. Unfortunately, the market crashed, costs on the project overran and Tom is wondering whether it makes sense to cut his losses now or keep going in the hope of maybe breaking even.

Next, we have Rajesh, a software entrepreneur. Rajesh started a Web 2.0 company, maxing out his credit cards to launch his online donation platform.  Animal lovers from around the world donated to save the hybrid spider monkey from extinction. But then the market crashed, donations to spider monkeys dried up, and Rajesh is wondering whether to get a job or keep going in the hope of selling his business and maybe breaking even.

While in different industries with different specifics, both situations share similarities. Both involve a decision on whether to continue or cancel a project; both involve projects where the big financial benefit occurs at the end; both have environmental uncertainty;  and both involve sunk costs that cannot be recovered if the decision is to cancel.

We can identify this as a Continue/Cancel decision pattern. We can also document certain types of analysis, like cost/benefit analysis, opportunity cost analysis and risk-adjusted net present value analysis, which can help in the decision process. We can also identify common problems that occur when implementing this decision and common mitigation strategies to avoid those problems.

By documenting and teaching these shared characteristics to our decision-makers, we can train them to make better decisions in these scenarios, increasing their chance of a favorable outcome.

Next Steps

Over the next couple months I’ll be seeding the idea of decision patterns by documenting them on this blog and linking to work done by others before me. At some point I’ll move these patterns to a wiki so others can start enhancing, correcting and adding to those patterns. I envision this as an iterative process, starting with a small group of people and expanding outward as the requirements for documenting a decision pattern become more understood.

If you want to stay informed of the progress of this project, you can subscribe to this blog using the e-mail subscription box or the Subscribe to Feed link in the right-hand navigation bar. Or, if you are interested in participating in the working group when it is created, please contact me, tell me more about your interest in the subject and how I can contact you.

And, as always, please feel free to leave comments, criticisms and suggestions below.

Photo by Windell Oskay

TAGGED:Decision Making
Share This Article
Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

big data analytics in transporation
Turning Data Into Decisions: How Analytics Improves Transportation Strategy
Analytics Big Data Exclusive
AI and fund manager software
AI And The Acceleration Of Information Flows From Fund Managers To Investors
Artificial Intelligence Exclusive
sales and data analytics
How Data Analytics Improves Lead Management and Sales Results
Analytics Big Data Exclusive
ai in marketing
How AI and Smart Platforms Improve Email Marketing
Artificial Intelligence Exclusive Marketing

Stay Connected

1.2kFollowersLike
33.7kFollowersFollow
222FollowersPin

You Might also Like

data visualization platforms
Big DataData VisualizationExclusive

New Big Data Visualization Platforms Help You Optimize Decision Making

6 Min Read

Why Predicting the Future is So Darn Difficult

5 Min Read

The Data-Decision Symphony

9 Min Read

Getting the other 90% of analytic adoption to happen

7 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

giveaway chatbots
How To Get An Award Winning Giveaway Bot
Big Data Chatbots Exclusive
ai in ecommerce
Artificial Intelligence for eCommerce: A Closer Look
Artificial Intelligence

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?