SA/NT Tech Talk: Would you know a good decision if you saw one?

Title: Would you know a good decision if you saw one?

Presenter: Emeritus Professor Steve Begg, University of Adelaide; and, Decisions, Decisions

Date: Friday 29th April

Time: 1730 (for 1815)

Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ARsn4xqKQQqZy0AdoFVUrA

Cost: Free (members). $10 - non-members

Abstract:

Making decisions is a key component of most technical and managerial jobs – the only bit of control an organization has over its future are its decisions (and their implementation), the rest is  up to nature, chance, decisions of others … all uncontrollable.  Like many other spheres, good decision-making abilities do not arise from “natural talent”, but from learning and developing a set of skills, honed by experience.  But most people have not been taught how to make good decisions in uncertain, complex or novel situations – or even what a good decision is.  This talk will introduce some key decision-making concepts (based on decision science) including the six dimensions of Decision Quality (DQ) that enable the user to make, and know they have made, a good decision (the only thing they can control) before they know the outcome.    The concepts are decision-agnostic, so equally applicable to personal decisions.

Bio:

Steve is an Emeritus Professor and former Head of School at the Australian School of Petroleum & Energy Resources (formerly ASP), University of Adelaide. His focus is on: tools and processes for decision-making under uncertainty; project/ asset and portfolio evaluations; and psychological factors in eliciting expert opinions. Steve’s prior roles include: Director for Decision Science and Strategic Planning with Landmark (a Halliburton company), a variety of senior roles for BP Alaska that spanned uncertainty in geological, engineering and economic models and Researcher and Project Manager with BP Research, where his focus was on uncertainty and variability modelling. He has twice been an SPE Distinguished Lecturer on uncertainty & decision-making topics. In 2014, he was elected to the Board of the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP). In 2016 he received the SPE’s top international award for the Management & Information discipline for his work on biases in decision-making. Steve is co-author, with Reidar Bratvold, of the book “Making Good Decisions”. He holds a PhD degree in Geophysics and a BSc degree in Geological Geophysics from Reading University in the UK and has taken executive education courses at MIT and U. Texas, Austin.