Decision Making

Decision making is recognized as a core activity of public administration. The managerial approach to P. A. favors "rational comprehensive" decision making aimed at maximizing efficiency, economy and effectiveness. Specialization, premise controls, hierarchy, formalization, and "grid regulations" are means of limiting alternatives and promoting effective decision making. The rational model emphasizes clear objectives, comprehensive consideration of means, a choice of means that is informed by explicit values, and operational criteria.

The rational model of decision making is difficult to apply in practice for a number of reasons. These include: (1) policy objectives are often ambiguous; (2) the model requires proactive administration whereas in practice public administrators tend to be reactive ["it's hard to think about draining the swamp when you're fighting off the alligators"]; (3) and agency missions overlap in ways that make it hard to deal with problems comprehensively.

The NPM favors decentralized decision making based on market criteria and also a great deal of employee discretion. [Who likes to wait while a worker checks to see if he or she can do something you want done.] The idea says those who subscribe to the NPM is that decision making should be more concerned with customer satisfaction.

The political approach to P. A. favors incremental decision making. This perspective accepts that policy objectives may be purposely kept vague in order to build political consensus and support. Means and ends are not treated as distinct. The question for decision, therefore, is more like "what steps can be taken in the general direction desired" as opposed to "what are the particular steps that are the best means to a specific objective." In this model, the test of a "good" decision is the extent of political support or consensus it enjoys. The consideration of possible or potential alternatives is limited.

Incremental decision making has several limitations. These are: (1) it can lead to hyper-pluralism or gridlock as coordination become more difficult; (2) small incremental steps in decision making may lead to undesirable or unforeseen consequences; (3) it can produce circularity in policy making; and (4) it is not compatible with large-scale policy shifts.

The debate over rational versus incremental decision making is partly a debate over alternative political systems and values. Rational decision making has a centralizing bias, while incrementalism tends to favor representative, pluralistic decision making. The rational model also tends to favor less public participation while incrementalism leans toward widespread popular participation in decision making. Despite their differences, either approach can work well or fail, depending on the circumstances in which it is used.

The legal approach to P. A. emphasized adjudicatory procedure, which is a special form of incrementalism. It is a form bounded by formal rules. Adjudication can be prospective such as when a public utility commission considers a rate hike for a regulated utility, such as SCE&G. Or, it can be retrospective when it focuses on the legality of past behavior. The type of decision making may be very valuable when a decision turns on matters of individual intent or unique events. It is also useful when a number of subjective criteria must be considered.

As the others do, adjudication also its drawbacks. It is time consuming, and places people in adversarial rather than cooperative relationships. It can also lead to circularity in policy making, and the rules of law resulting from such decisions may be obscure.

Decision making approaches have been synthesized somewhat through an approach called "mixed scanning." This approach tries to take a rational approach on a smaller set of decisions, while allowing other decisions to be made incrementally. The analogy is sometimes used of a weather satellite scanning the globe and sending back data to earth. Areas that show no particular weather patterns or changes are not analyzed thoroughly. Rather the future forecast is a continuation of past forecasts. Places that show changes occurring, however, would get extra attention to gather data and analyze the information in order to project what will happen. Hence the term "mixed scanning."

Whatever decision approach is used, certain pitfalls need to be avoided. These are: (1) avoid misplaced priorities due to unclear goals; (2) avoid confusing the public interest with that of a special interest, clientele group, or constituency; (3) avoid overly rigid adherence to rules; (4) the oversimplification of reality; (5) overquantification at the expense of qualitative factors; and (6) reluctance to engage in policy and program evaluation to gain feedback.

A major question for P. A. in the future is what role information technologies will play in administrative decision making. For example, geographical information systems can be used to decide where to place schools, fire stations, etc. Decision models can be constructed on computers to take data and based on the data to decide whether someone gets a service or benefit or not. Where does the human factor fit in? How do we plug in the unmeasurable into such decisions?