Chapter 11. Management and conversation

11.1 Management and decision making

p 145
Simon characterizes making a decision as a heuristic search among alternatives in a problem space of possible courses of action, with the aim of achieving a preferred set of consequences.
[...]
A variety of crucial questions need to be asked about the decision making model: Is it really the only way to be rational? What about other ways coping with hesitations, such as learning and behaving according to authority, rules, or intuition?

p 146

The bounded rationality approach does not assume that a decision maker can evaluate all the alternatives, but it takes for granted a well-defined problem space in which they are located. It is not clear for what observer this space of alternatives exists.

11.2 Decision making and resolution

p 147
The question "What needs to be done?" arises in a breakdown, in which the course of activity is interrupted by some kind of 'unreadiness.' It is often manifested in hesitation and confusion, and is always already oriented in a certain direction of possibilities.

11.3 Organizations as networks of commitments

11.4 Decision support systems

p 152-157

Dangers:

p 156: False belief in objectivity.

One immediate consequence of concealing commitment is an illusion of objectivity.

p 157

[From Gadamer76, p 9] It is not so much our judgments as it is our prejudices that constitute our being...
[Personal note: Sartre - the being of one's own past is 'en- soi']

11.5 Tools for conversation

p 157

Organizations exist as networks of directives and commissives. Directives include orders, requests. consultations, and offers; commissives include promises, acceptances, and rejections.

p 159

There are surprisingly few basic conversational building blocks (such as request/promise, offer/acceptance, and report/acknowledgement) that frequently recur in conversations for action.

Part II, 10. Current directions in artificial intelligence, 12. Using computers: A direction for design
Marc Girod