Facilitating Group Decisions

Develop creative solutions and generate new ideas through efficient group decision making. Enhance productivity and performance through cohesive, flexible, responsive teams.

Description

In a highly global market, organizations that have the ability to analyze and rapidly respond to the constantly changing marketplace will have the greatest chance of remaining competitive and profitable. This is greatly dependent upon work teams that are cohesive, flexible, and able to rapidly arrive at important decisions. Group decision making provides for increased ability to gather pertinent information, to develop creative solutions, and to generate new ideas.

In this course, participants will explore the benefits inherent in group decision making and will learn about models and techniques for efficient group decision making that lead to enhanced productivity and organizational performance.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is important for professionals who lead or manage teams, or aspire to, and seek to enhance team decision making to improve overall productivity.

Course Format

eCornell takes a problem-based approach to learning, and builds each course around realistic case studies and scenarios. All courses are self-paced, and are facilitated by an eCornell instructor, who leads the online discussions and is available to answer any questions about the course content.

This course contains the following modules:

• Models, Techniques, and Methods for Decision Making
  • Factors to consider in determining whether to employ group decision making
  • Advantages of group decision making
  • Symptoms and potential consequences of "groupthink"
  • "Risky shift"
  • Group versus individual tolerance for risk
  • Common models of decision making
  • Implementing decision-making models for specific circumstances
  • Techniques for group decision making and strategies to reach high-quality group decisions
  • Factors involved in choosing the most appropriate decision-making method
• Assessing Ethical Implications of Decisions
  • Ensuring ethical soundness of group decisions
  • Ethical behavior in both leadership and contributing roles within the group

Benefits to the Learner

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Determine whether or not to employ group decision making
• Evaluate the most appropriate decision-making method for a particular circumstance
• Apply the techniques that improve and facilitate group decision making
• Facilitate effective participation of team members in problem solving
• Implement strategies to help groups arrive at the best decisions

Authoring Faculty

Florence Berger, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus

Judi Brownell, Ph.D., Professor

Sponsoring School

Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration

Total Learning Time

Approximately five to six hours over a period of two weeks.

HRCI Recertification

This course been approved for six (6) recertification credit hours toward PHR, SPHR, and GPHR recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute. Please contact the Human Resource Certificate Institute (HRCI) for further information about certification or recertification.