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Various situations faced by individuals involve decision-making actions. The more diverse the environment in which the decision is made, the greater its degree of complexity. This complexity is expressed in a decision-making process through the variables considered, the difficulty of degree of an action, the number of activities to be performed, the time required, the context, or the number of individuals involved and their characteristics (França, 2020; Harris & Li, 2016).
Nowadays, decision makers are facing decision tasks that are both increasingly complex and interrelated (Karakul & Qudrat-Ullah, 2008; Proctor & Zandt, 2018). A complex decision can be understood as a complex system composed of interrelated variables. The more interconnected these variables, the more complex the system (França et al., 2017a; França et al., 2017b). It is difficult to isolate the elements that influence a decision. It happens because their consequences are interdependent, and the environment in which they are embedded generates constant change in terms of the decisions taken (Doyle et al., 2008). Decisions are made by individuals, and are affected by the environment and by perceptions, beliefs, and experiences. Traditionally, decision-making process was viewed as a rational behavior; however, human decisions and tasks are influenced by intuition, perception, creativity, and emotional responses to a much greater extent than previously thought (Chohra et al., 2018; Proctor & Zandt, 2018). Based on these definitions, this research understands complex decision process like the ones that encompasses the principles of the Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) (Ericsson et al., 2018; Klein, Orasanu, Calderwood, Zsambok, Orasanu et al, 1993).
When initiating the decision-making process, the main objective is not to search for the best decision, but to search for the best possible result, based on the available decision alternatives. Authors such as Klein et al. (1993) and Chohra et al. (2018) argue that the decision-making process is prone to error since the personal characteristics of the decision makers have a direct influence on the decision. To minimize errors arising from individual decision-making, the authors of (Neumann, 2017) suggest the construction of an organized, systematic, and collaborative process. In addition, finding the solution to a complex decision is often time-consuming since a great deal of thought is required between the identification of the decision question and the choice of action to take. The decision question must be analyzed, and it is appropriate to interpret the knowledge involved (Grüning & Kühn, 2017). When dealing with complex decisions, it is important to think about the phases that compose the decision-making process.
Some initiatives (Hammond et al., 2002; Klein, Orasanu, Calderwood, Zsambok, & Klein, 1993; Klein & Calderwood, 1991; Klein, Orasanu, Calderwood, & Zsambok, 1993; Shattuck & Miller, 2006) have argued the importance of projecting the impact of complex decisions; however, their models do not explicitly offer a way of conducting a collaborative impact analysis, considering not only the explicit knowledge and data bases, but the tacit knowledge developed by decision-makers based on previous experiences and cognitive attributes such as intentions, beliefs, and desires. Considering it, decision makers are facing a lack of models and methods to support the impact projection of complex decisions in a collaborative way.