Decision Making for Technology Executives

Become a more effective decision-maker, communicator, and manager by using the valuable techniques described in this unique book. It's designed to help you break away from the constraints of the technologist's "analytical/scientific" viewpoint and employ broader organizational and personal perspectives that strengthen your decision-making ability and leadership skills. "Decision-Making for Technology Executives" shows you how to utilize this multiple perspective approach to problem-solving and systems development in real-world, outside the laboratory, situations. You learn how this three-dimensional approach has been applied successfully to a wide spectrum of complex systems tasks: from system forecasting to technology assessment, from industrial catastrophes to facility siting decisions, from corporate strategy to acquisition.

Through valuable case studies, such as the Exxon Valdez and Bhopal accidents, you learn lessons on improving technology and risk assessment, forecasting, and crisis management. And through ready-to-implement, practical guidelines you see how to become a more effective decision-maker and manager, while improving communication between technologists and others involved in the decision process.

A one-of-its-kind look at the multiple perspective concept, this guide helps to increase your understanding of complex sociotechnical systems, boost the technologist's effectiveness as an executive, and improve technological risk management, forecasting, and planning.