Decision means choosing from at least two distinct alternatives. Decision making, on the other hand, can be defined to include the whole process from problem structuring to choosing the best alternative (e.g. Kangas 1992). Most decisions we face every day are easy, like picking a meal from a restaurant menu. Sometimes the problems are so complex, however, that decision aid is needed.
Decision making can be considered from at least two points of view: it can be analyzed, how the decisions should be made in order to obtain best results (prescriptive approach), or, it can be analyzed, how people actually do decisions without help (descriptive approach) (e.g. von Winterfeldt and Edwards 1986). The first approach is normative; it aims at methods that can be used to aid people in their decisions. These decision-aid methods are usually based on an assumption that decisions are made rationally. There is evidence that people are not necessarily rational (e.g. Simon 1957). However, this is not a problem in decision aid: it can realistically be assumed that decisions actually were better, if people were instructed to act rationally. Decision-aid methods aim at helping people to improve the decisions they make, not mimicking human decision making.
The planning situation can be characterized with three dimensions: the material world, the social world and the personal world (Mingers and Brocklesby 1997; Fig. 1.1). The material world dictates what is possible in a planning situation, the personal world what we wish for, and the social world what is acceptable to the society surrounding us. All these elements are involved in decision making, with different emphasis in different situations.
The decisions can be made either under certainty or uncertainty, and the problem can be either unidimensional of multidimensional. In addition, the problem can be either discrete (i.e. the number of possible alternatives is limited) or continuous (i.e. there is an infinite number of possible alternatives), and include either one or several decision makers.
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(2008). Introduction. In: Decision Support for Forest Management. Managing Forest Ecosystems, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6787-7_1
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