On Friday, 02^nd February, 2024, National Institute of Management, Lahore arranged a workshop with honorable guest speaker Mr. Mohsin Mushtaq Chandana, on the topic of “Decision Making and Problem Solving” for the participants of 39^th MCMC.

The guest speaker highlighted that all of us are making decisions everyday but in organizational context, decision making is the process through which managers identify organizational problems and try to resolve them in the best possible manner. He further pointed that decision making is a cognitive process of selecting a course of action from multiple alternatives. It is a psychological construct: although we can never ‘see’ a decision, we can ‘infer from observable behavior that a decision has been made. Decision signals an explicit intent to act. He discussed in detail the eight steps of decision making i.e., identifying a problem, identifying a decision criterion, allocating weight to the criteria, developing alternatives, analyzing alternatives, selecting an alternative, implementing the decision and evaluating decision effectiveness. He also discussed the decision-making models in detail.

He advocated that decision making at all levels has a different degree of significance, decisions at lower level of official management may not be that impact generating, whereas at a higher-level good decision making ensures the achievement of organizational goals. The honourable guest speaker emphasized that “Problem Solving and Decision Making” are important life skills. As public servants, officers need to focus on learning rational and impartial techniques of Problem Solving and Decision Making.