Contact Address:
The range of decisions to be taken
When it comes to assessing information and knowledge needs, there are key factors or decisions that are supposed to be considered in ensuring that everything integrated is of great significance to the application to the application of information and knowledge. Practical examples of these decisions include the following:
Organizational and personal decisions:
These are decisions that are articulated by managers and are established within the organizational conditions that are specific to certain to specific situations. They are decision that can sometimes be taken in an independent way or involve the delegation of other staff members in collecting information and impact on knowledge. In relation to personal decisions, managers will be in a better position of analyzing situation and collecting appropriate information and knowledge (Tong, Tak, and Wong, 2015, p.19). The most significant thing about this type of decision is that there is no need of making any form of consultations.
Tactical and strategic decisions:
Strategic decisions are supposed to be taken in reference to the problems that have been identified and are considered to be imperative to the key process and measures of an organization and, hence, they involve the act of having thorough finding and assessment of facts about the issue. Notable thing to learn about suc decisions is that they have long-term implications and, hence, the information and knowledge achieved would result to long-term outcomes over the situation being addressed. Tactical decisions, on the other hand, will be concerned with addressing repetitive and routine issues that have been identified and, therefore, may be made with little deliberation from different sources (Calvo-Mora, Navarro-García, and Periañez-Cristobal, 2015, p.1645). Given that they have short-term implications, they require the application of judgment and experience over the issue as a result of the complication that may be derived through the one dimensional perspective established.
Programmed and non-programmed decisions:
In a situation whereby routine type problems or those of repetitive nature exist, using programmed decisions will be appropriate as one will integrate a standard procedure in tackling. An important thing to note about such decisions is that the lower level managers are normally the ones in charge. Otherwise, when faced by more complex situations, the use of non-programmed decisions is considered as efficient and appropriate among the higher levels of managers (Knudsen and Roman, 2015, p.5).
Policy and operative decisions
Policy decisions, which are also referred to as tactical decisions are associated with the organization’s policy matters and, hence, have a long-term impact on the nature and operation of a given issue. They are decisions taken by the organization top level managers. As for operative decisions, the focus is on the day-to-days operations or activities of a given business and, therefore, highly considered among the lower and middle level managers. Therefore, for one to determine the level of management that should be integrated in the issue there is a need of determining the nature of the issue and the type of the solution required.
Individual and group decisions
Individual decisions are highly considered in the broad policy framework of any given organization of project and are taken by a single individual. As a for group decisions, pertinent and important issues are discussed and handled by the committee and, hence, result to a higher level of involvement from different people.
The information and knowledge needed
All the information collected had to be assessed for the purpose of making the right and efficient decision. As a result, the strategic level of the required information will be characterized by information that their feedback is supposed to be shared with the top management team and or the board of directors. Another significant level of decision making considered is the tactical level of the needed information. It is a situation whereby the information collected and assessed will be restricted to the project team that are expected to determine resources and systems appropriate for the implementation of the decisions. Finally, there is the operational level of decision-making, which is characterized by the information expected to be used by managers from different departments (Pawlowski and Bick, 2015, p.134). In this case, the internal sources of information are considered as viable in preparing the decisions.
More specifically, there are two forms of key information that are needed for decision making, in order to move the business in a strategic direction: financial and non-financial information. Financial information that is required, at this stage, include: historical records of financial data, for the last two years especially, interest rates on any loans and the total principle balance on those same loans, taxes, and tax payments, and any other outstands debts and receipts. In contrasts, non-financial information which should be collected include target market information, recruiting process, marketing mix, and current staff. This means including both information on how staff is selected, and the current staff who is working for the business.
Internal and external sources of information
With regard to internal sources, relevant information can be collected from both formal and informal types of information sources. Formal sources may include the documented details about the operations of the business. As for informal information, much consideration can be directed to the feedback that is offered over the issue or system that need to be improved (Scott and Davis, 2015, p.88). When it comes to external sources, it is clear that the consultants hired by the organization to provide assistance required in the implementation of the changes will be the main focus. With such approach, the information extracted will mainly be formal and will include training manuals that are documented and overviews on implementing a successful project. One thing that has been noted is the fact that the collection of information from internal sources is easier and faster than when the focus is on the external sources.
Recommendations for improvement
One of the main issues that have been experienced and needs to be improved is the aspect of time that is used in discussing and obtaining feedback from different elements of sources. Despite being an appropriate approach of collecting key information and insights that are expected to be used in building a better discussion, it should be noted that using a more directive or autocratic approach would build a strong platform of saving time spent (Dakin, Devlin, Feng, Rice, O'Neill, and Parkin, 2015, p.1259).
At the same time, application of different tools for making and evaluating decisions such as the decision matrix and the T chart could have offered a deeper and clear understanding of the values that such information and knowledge will have on the project. Finally, there is a need of integrating the application of the appropriate information system, including the decision support systems, for the purpose of collecting information and assessing them for the purpose of ascertaining on their significance to any given project (Hwang, Kettinger, and Mun, 2015, p.594). It is evident that this assignment has effective demonstrated on how information and knowledge needs can be assessed. This has involved the discussion on the range of decisions to be made in any given project and the relevant information and knowledge that are required in ensuring that decision-making is found to be effective. The assignment has also assessed the relevant external and internal sources that are considered as appropriate for defining the information and knowledge.
Bibliography
Calvo-Mora, A., Navarro-García, A. and Periañez-Cristobal, R., 2015. Project to improve knowledge management and key business results through the EFQM excellence model. International Journal of Project Management, 33(8), pp.1638-1651.
Dakin, H., Devlin, N., Feng, Y., Rice, N., O'Neill, P. and Parkin, D., 2015. The Influence of Cost‐Effectiveness and Other Factors on Nice Decisions. Health economics, 24(10), pp.1256-1271.
Hwang, Y., Kettinger, W.J. and Mun, Y.Y., 2015. Personal information management effectiveness of knowledge workers: conceptual development and empirical validation. European Journal of Information Systems, 24(6), pp.588-606.
Knudsen, H.K. and Roman, P.M., 2015. Innovation attributes and adoption decisions: perspectives from leaders of a national sample of addiction treatment organizations. Journal of substance abuse treatment, 49, pp.1-7.
Pawlowski, J.M. and Bick, M., 2015. The global knowledge management framework: Towards a theory for knowledge management in globally distributed settings. Leading Issues in Knowledge Management, Volume Two, 2, p.134.
Scott, W.R. and Davis, G.F., 2015. Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems perspectives. London: Routledge.
Tong, C., Tak, W.I.W. and Wong, A., 2015. The impact of knowledge sharing on the relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction: the perception of information communication and technology (ICT) practitioners in Hong Kong. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 5(1), p.19.
