An Introduction to Decision

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An Introduction to Decision Support
Presented By Col Daniel Dunaway Director,
Defense Financial Management Comptroller
School, Eaker College Maxwell Air Force Base, AL
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Outline

• Why Decision Support
• Trends / Descriptions the Advisor Role
• Decision Support
• Definition / Process / Model
• Skills for Successful Decision Support
• Leader's Role
• Schoolhouse Offerings

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Why Decision Support

• As I see it, the role of the government CFO has
  evolved from a chief accounting officer to a
  chief advisory officer. To be truly successful,
  the CFO must be sought after and recognized as a
  strategic partner and an integral member of the
  organizations senior Leadership team. The CFO
  must be at the table when the real decisions are
  being contemplated, not brought in afterwards to
  figure out how to pay for them.
• CFO - US Department of Energy

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Why Decision Support

• Most decision problems are no longer well
  structured problems that are easy to be solved by
  intuition or experience

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Current Trends

• Accountability
• Downsizing/Rightsizing
• Improved Business Processes
• Reengineering and Process Change
• Global Competition
• Thirst for information
• Transformation

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Job Descriptions
Makes recommendations to the Director, NGS,
about program priorities and new initiatives.
Provides professional accounting advice and
assistance to supported organizations.
Develops cost-benefit analysis of proposed
budgetary and program actions and advises agency
managers.
Recommends courses of action including
enforcement action, based upon review of
financial statements and filings.
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Job Descriptions
What is the common theme of those job
descriptions?
ADVICE
From a Financial Management perspective, what
does it mean to give advice?
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Advisor Role
Provide innovative, insightful, and actionable
financial analysis and decision support in the
early stages of the decision cycle.
I think Id like to define decision support as
relevance and you achieve relevance by having
relationships and these are relationships with
the commander, and more importantly,
relationships with the functionals on the staff.
Decision support in particular, is so much a part
of our makeup, one could argue that it is the
role of the comptroller.
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Definition

• Decision Support is enabling decision makers to
  make informed decisions that better utilize
  resources and improve mission effectiveness.

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Process

• Decision Support is a two-phased process that
  provides leaders with viable alternatives,
  financial and non-financial impacts of choosing
  an alternative, a well supported recommendation,
  and a method for implementing the leaders
  direction.

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Process

• In phase one, advisors combine information, tools
  and techniques to understand the environment and
  analyze how and why things happened.
• In phase two, advisors use their analysis to
  develop, evaluate, and clearly communicate
  projections, alternatives, and impacts and make
  recommendations in a concise, actionable, and
  timely manner to decision makers who may or may
  not be subject matter experts.

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Process

• Advisor approach
• Identify issue and commanders intent
• Analyze the issue and environment
• Develop/evaluate potential solutions
• Estimate costs, benefits, risks, and flexibility
• Determine impacts (financial and non-financial)
• Consider a range of alternatives
• Propose a recommendation
• Determine how to lead/manage the solution to
  ensure a result (implement)
• Continuously evaluate the implementation

Pre Decision
Post Decision
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Decision Support Model
To positively affect decision making you have to
do your part before the decisions are made.
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Skills for Successful Decision Support

• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Oral communication
• Written communication
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Information technology application
• Leadership
• Creativity and innovation
• Lifelong learning and self direction
• Professionalism and strong work ethic
• Ethics and a sense of social responsibility
• Source
• Are they really ready to work? Employers
  perspectives on the basic knowledge and applied
  skills of new entrants to the 21st century U.S.
  workforce (2006). Published by The Conference
  Board Inc, the Partnership for 21st Century
  Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families and
  the Society for Human Resource Management.

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Critical Thinking

• a process by which we test claims and arguments
  and determine which have merit and which do not.
  In other words, critical thinking is a search for
  answers, a quest.
• Vincent Ruggiero, Beyond Feelings A Guide to
  Critical Thinking 7th Ed,
• It is not thinking negatively or criticizing
  others

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Qualitative Analysis

• Relies on reasons behind various aspects of
  behavior.
• Investigates the why and how of decision making,
  as compared to what, where, and when of
  quantitative research.
• Uses smaller focused samples instead of large
  random samples.
• Categorizes data into patterns as primary basis
  for organizing and reporting results.

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Quantitative Analysis

• Relies on
• collecting and analyzing numeric data
• collecting scores that measure distinct
  attributes of individuals and organizations
• procedures of comparing groups or relating
  factors
• Source John W. Creswell, Educational Research
  Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative
  and Qualitative Research 2nd Ed. (2005).

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Leaders Role

• Leaders must create an atmosphere that enhances
  Decision Support by
• empowering employees to apply critical thinking.
• entertaining out of the box alternatives.
• building diverse teams to get full spectrum of
  ideas.
• creating brainstorming rooms to enhance thinking.
• planning ahead, Decision Support needs time to
  develop the best alternatives.
• advocating Decision Supports benefits in/out of
  your organization.
• building accountability to follow up on
  implemented decisions.

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An Introduction to Decision Support
Presented By Col Daniel Dunaway Director,
Defense Financial Management Comptroller
School, Eaker College Maxwell Air Force Base, AL