Throughout life, people may face many obstacles which they must overcome. One of the most common obstacles are decisions. Everyone continuously faces decisions, whether it is what outfit to wear or what to eat, daily. Along with these simpler decisions, people face more difficult ones as well. One of the first major decisions must be made during the teenage years. Nearly all students who are bound for post-secondary education face the difficult decision of determining which school to attend to further their education. When making this decision, it is important to weigh the pros and cons along with the long term influence of the decision. I too struggled with my own decision regarding where to attend school, however I feel that as long as all …show more content…
For many, the number of different variables, along with the large amount of information, can become overwhelming and confusing. In order to combat this, the decision maker can use a tool such as a decision model to help organize thoughts. Decision models are a visual representation of the decision process. Similarly to the way in which we think, a decision model can be created to represent the weight, or relative importance of the many optional choices. In addition to the many optional choices, users then select and insert the deciding factors of their choice. “A model first identifies specific criteria to be used in making a decision, then allows the decision makers to assess how well competing options meet those criteria” (The Futurist 45). Not only can these factors be listed, but they can also be weighted based on importance. For example, when buying a house, the buyer may feel that having a pool is more important than having a three-car garage. Because of this, whether or not a house has a pool plays a greater influence in the decision to purchase the home. Then, once the deciding factors have been weighted, the user will then fill out the remainder of the matrix by scoring the deciding factors for each …show more content…
More often than not, the option with the highest overall score is considered to be the most appropriate choice. However, this may not always be the case. Depending on how strongly the user feels about his or her desires, the user may elect to ignore the results of the matrix. Although this happens, it is not necessarily recommended. The design of the decision matrix is so that users can include their own wants and desires. Because of this, decision matrixes typically provide a significant amount of weight to options which fulfill the deciding factors with the greatest importance. Decision matrixes are one of the most well rounded tools for those making decisions. Decision matrixes are not entirely foolproof. Because of the user’s ability to weight the deciding factors, it is important for the user to remain realistic when determining the importance of one deciding factor compared to another. Without thought, a user may place too high of importance on one particular deciding factor. If this happens, the outcomes that appear to be the proper fit, will simply meet the users desires, rather than focusing on the