Devry MGMT 530 Week 4 Midterm Answers

Devry MGMT 530 Week 4 Midterm Answers

1. (TCO A) Your small services company has grown rapidly during its first two years and has outgrown the workspace that you have leased for three years. As the operations manager, you have been asked to lead a decision-making team to select a location for the growing company. Your desire is for the team to make an effective decision.
i. What criteria should your decision-making approach have to ensure that it is effective?
ii. Describe the eight elements for effective decision making used in a rational decision-making approach. (Points : 20)

2. (TCO A) Understanding fundamental and means objectives are important to decision analysis and decision making. As your business has grown, you are evaluating moving your company to a larger office closer to several of your key customers and are looking at several different alternatives.
i. Identify your fundamental objectives.
ii. How would those objectives be used in the decision-making process?
iii. Identify your means objectives.
iv. How would the means objectives be used in the decision-making process? (Points : 20)

4. (TCO B) Utilizing intuitive thinking in today’s business environment as a manager is a must in order to make good decisions.
i. Why is it so important for managers to partner intuition with supporting data today in decision making?

ii. Develop three approaches for improving future decision making. (Points : 20)

3. (TCO A) Robert Landau is considering three job offers. In trying to decide which to accept, Robert has concluded that three objectives are important in this decision. First, of course, is to maximize disposable income—the amount left after paying for housing, utilities, taxes, and other necessities. Second, Robert likes cold weather and enjoys winter sports. The third objective relates to the quality of the community. Being single, Robert would like to live in a city with a lot of activities and a large population of single professionals.

Robert has done his homework on the locations of the three job offers. He has determined the type of apartment he could get, determining disposable income. He has decided to use annual snowfall to determine the value of his second objective. For his third objective, Robert found a recent magazine survey of large cities that scores those cities as places for single professionals to live. Although the survey isn’t perfect from Robert’s point of view, all three of the cities where he has offers are included in the survey. The disposal income objective is most important, twice as important as each of the other two criteria. The second and third criteria are equally important.

Here is a summary of each of the locations:
1) ZDR Technology in Kingman, AZ: Disposable income estimate: $1,600/month; snowfall average: 320 cm; magazine score: 50.
2) Minne Digital in Minneapolis, MN: Disposable income estimate: $1,300 to 1500/month; snowfall average 400 cm; magazine score: 75.
3) Wharf Consulting in San Francisco, CA: Disposable income estimate: $1,200/month; snowfall average: negligible; magazine score: 95.

(a) What is Robert’s problem or opportunity in this situation?
(b) What is the overall objective for Robert’s decision? What are the fundamental objectives that support the overall objective?
(c) What are Robert’s alternatives for this decision situation?
(d) Evaluate this decision situation using tradeoffs or a weighted scoring model. Based on that analysis, to which location should Robin select?
(Points : 50)