Business Skills for Good IconConsider a decision you needed to make recently, whether it was of little or significant importance. What was the role of evidence in supporting this decision? Did you seek out the evidence first to guide you toward a decision, or was your mind already made up and you sought evidence to support your “gut feeling”? In this Discussion, you will examine one example of a time when you made a decision based on “evidence” and one example of a time when you made a decision before finding the “evidence” for support.
To prepare for this Discussion:
First, review the following video:
Business Skills for Good: Evidence-Based Decision Making
Time Estimate: 4 minutes
Transcriipt – Business Skills for Good: Evidence-Based Decision Making [PDF]
Then, review the article “Is Decision-Based Evidence Making Necessarily Bad?”
Next, reflect upon your experiences related to decision making, particularly in the workplace. Think back across these decision-making experiences—what went well, what didn’t go well, and any insights you gained from the experiences and/or from watching the video. With your experiences in mind, consider how evidence-based decision making could promote positive social change.
Note: When using specific examples from your professional experience, be sure to disguise the names of any individuals or organizations.
By Day 3
Post your analysis of the impact of evidence-based decision making on business outcomes. In your analysis, be sure to include the following:
Describe one professional experience in which you used evidence as the basis for decision making and one experience in which you made a decision and then found evidence to support the decision you made.
Compare both situations regarding how the use of (or lack of) evidence impacted the outcomes of your decision making, being specific in terms of positive and negative impacts. In your comparison, be sure to include the risks and benefits of each approach in terms of the outcomes.
Based on this week’s Learning Resources and your previous experiences as examples, identify two or more ways evidence-based decision making can be used to promote positive social change within and/or for an organization.
