Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decisionmaking

3.5 Desirable Properties of Fundamental Objectives

What about the cases where decision problems do not appear? Should we just sit and wait? Maybe so. But only if sitting and waiting is an explicit choice made because we have decided that it is the best thing to do. Often, instead of sitting and waiting, it may be preferable to identify decision opportunities, that is, opportunities to better achiev

Identifying Decision Opportunities

In value-focused thinking, in contrast, the value model guides the search for creative alternatives in the direction in which one should go.

One's thought processes about what alternatives are possible are anchored, and so one is not creative in devising alternatives,

and one may settle for an alternative considerably less desirable than others that could have been developed.

In decision problems, there is usually an alternative such as the status quo or "an obvious choice." If no better alternatives are found, this alternative will probably do. Often the entire analysis uses this alternative as an anchor and tries to find alternatives that are incrementally better.

Improving Communication

'I'he values relevant to a given decision situation indicate what information is important. Once you have specified your values, you should thencollect information on alternatives only if the information will help you judge the alternatives in terms of achieving those values.