Decision-making & Problem Solving books

Data governance looks deceptively simple on paper. In reality, it is complex. And it is increasingly recognized as a key foundational element necessary to advance analytics and improve operations for organizations of all types across industry.  In this practical guide, data experts Uma Gupta and San Cannon look to demystify data governance through pragmatic advice based on real-world experience and cutting-edge academic research. Using case studies, the authors provide insight into how to address the myriad of data governance challenges facing organizations today, with useful and sensible actions and practices. The chapters focus on filling in the blanks of other data governance information, as well as providing both basic and forward-thinking suggestions for some of today’s greatest challenges. It is peppered throughout with practical tips for data strategy, data literacy, and data quality.  If you are new to data governance, or a seasoned practitioner looking to understand how to better address new issues, this book can help guide you through core elements such as communication, culture, and change management.

Advances in Business and Management Forecasting presents state-of-the-art studies in the application of forecasting methodologies to suce areas as finance, economics, technology, and forecasting accuracy. Volume 11 is split into four sections which address Forecasting in Marketing and Sales, Forecasting in Health Care, Forecasting in Business and Economics, and Topics in Forecasting. A number of topics are examined including brand experience, hospital bed management, population growth and online information sharing.

The objective of this research annual is to present state-of-the-art studies in the application of forecasting methodologies to such areas as sales, marketing and strategic decision making. It is the hope and direction of this research annual to become an applications and practitioner oriented publication. Topics will include sales and marketing, forecasting, new product forecasting, judgementally based forecasting, the application of surveys to forecasting, forecasting for strategic business decisions, improvements in forecasting accuracy, and sales response models.

Applications of Management Science showcases current studies in the application of management science, contributing to the solution of significant managerial decision-making problems. To those involved in the applications of multi-criteria decision making, data envelopment analysis, and decision making, in a realistic managerial problem-solving environment through the use of state-of-the-art management science modeling, this is a must read. The research presented by academics in Volume 13 significantly aids in the deconstruction of managerial decision-making problems with management science methodologies. Specifically focusing on the applications of management science methodologies data envelopment analysis and multi-criteria decision making, this collection is split into three sections: Data Envelopment Analysis, Optimization Modeling, Business Analytical Modeling. Applications of Management Science is core for those academics, researchers, and practitioners of management science in mitigating significant managerial decision-making problems, for both the public and the private sectors.

In the fast moving world of the fourth industrial revolution not everyone needs to be a data scientist but everyone should be data literate, with the ability to read, analyze and communicate with data.It is not enough for a business to have the best data if those using it don't understand the right questions to ask or how to use the information generated to make decisions. Be Data Literate is the essential guide to developing the curiosity, creativity and critical thinking necessary to make anyone data literate, without retraining as a data scientist or statistician. With learnings to show development and real-world examples from industries implementing data literacy skills, this book explains how to confidently read and speak the 'language of data' in the modern business environment and everyday life. Be Data Literate is a practical guide to understanding the four levels of analytics, how to analyze data and the key steps to making smarter, data-informed decisions. Written by a founding pioneer and worldwide leading expert on data literacy, this book empowers professionals with the skills they need to succeed in the digital world.

Business experimentation can not only create measurable value for organizations, it can provide the inspiration to break with the habits of the past by dealing with challenges and exploiting opportunities. This book is a step-by-step, practical guide to the six-stage business experiment process, from understanding the problem or opportunity to creating a hypothesis, planning the experiment and analysing the findings. It explores the top design criteria for successful and impactful business experiments and includes valuable case studies covering problem solving, performance improvement and strategic innovation. To support the process, Business Experimentation also includes downloadable, editable templates, worksheets and activities for use in ideation and planning sessions. This business experiment methodology can be used to support a one-off initiative or to underpin desired behaviours as part of a wider organizational change programme, as experimentation encourages people to be bold, take risks and seek new ways of doing things. Based on programmes the authors have run with a variety of leading organizations and with astonishing results, this practical guide provides businesses with the confidence to get started with experimentation and the tools to succeed.

Understand how to overcome the obstacles inhibiting performance and unlock the potential for brilliance that lies within every leader.Most leaders are operating nowhere near their optimal level of performance. In this book, Dr Alan Watkins helps leaders at every level understand how they can transform their output and unlock their true potential. He shares proven techniques that have helped thousands of leaders in FTSE 50 giants and SMEs across market sectors and geographies as well as the Olympic and Paralympic Rowing Team, resulting in them achieving their best ever medal haul in London 2012.Coherence shows how our ability to lead and deliver results is rooted in our biology. Dr Watkins explains the science of how to increase energy levels and become smarter, more resilient, happier, healthier and more successful in whatever we do. Drawing on case studies from prominent business leaders and insights from a diverse range of research fields, he reveals the secrets to exceptional leadership and how to be brilliant every day. Now in its second edition, this vital guide contains upgraded practical tools and new insights on how to transform productivity, manage complexity, accelerate innovation and drive greater commercial performance, all while becoming healthier and happier.

Conduct risk is at the core of behavioural regulation, a new approach to regulating financial services, whose new agencies and public prosecutors have spread rapidly across the world. Its prosecutors intervene assertively to challenge financial service providers to show clear evidence of a new customer-centric approach, which understands and responds to the hidden drivers of customer behaviour. They use their unprecedented powers to levy very large fines and even to imprison wrongdoers - often for not taking precautions rather than for any active wrongdoing. Conduct Risk Management is a tool for recognizing, acting on, and predicting conduct risk impacts in regulated business. Conduct Risk Management sees beyond econometric and other 'box-ticking' traditions of risk management. Whilst protecting senior managers, it helps all staff to make positive use of conduct risk to promote behaviour the regulator will accept as 'good', as good behaviour is good business. The new conduct regulations personally affect every manager in financial services, and their suppliers, with new regulations making senior managers liable to imprisonment for failures in organizational conduct. Conduct Risk Management sets out plainly what practitioners need to know to understand the regulator's intentions, to prove compliance, protect competitiveness and maintain licence to operate.

Why do we make the decisions we do? And how can we understand what influences our decisions? Non-Corporeal Actant Theory explores decisions and outcomes through the perspective of values, beliefs, ideas, and concepts - all integral parts of our everyday lives and the actor-networks that we take part in as decision-makers.  Connecting Values to Action: Non-Corporeal Actants and Choice brings together a cast of expert contributors to delve into this theory and its ramifications for our lives. With chapters that analyze decisions made by death-defying free climbers, indigenous people facing the loss of their culture, and corporates responding to the #MeToo movement, editor Christopher M. Hartt examines how decisions are affected by the widening range of actor-networks that come with social media and technological development.  For anyone struggling to understand how a decision is made, Connecting Values to Action offers a pathway to finding the causes of that decision. Exploring the role of non-corporeal actants on the very real consequences of decisions, this is an unmissable book for students and researchers of management and decision-making.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online.  Corporate executives immersed in the turbulent markets of today face a world not of clear cut moral dilemmas such as right or wrong, or good or evil, but instead must confront large corporate grey areas of lesser good, lesser evil, less true, less unfair, and less unjust. Often these choices become almost indistinguishable.  Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets: Executive Response to Market Challenges sets out a universal moral foundation of corporate executive ethics. Its chapters attempt to extend the discussion on human dignity to its practical applications, map out strategic approaches for responding to current turbulent markets, and drill moral skills for taming and tapping current turbulent markets. The book features modern techniques of critical thinking, moral reasoning, moral judgment, and moral justification, and charts how to uphold stakeholder rights and duties and understand corporate moral responsibilities.  Written as a guide for corporate executives who strive daily not only to be legal in all they decide, choose and do, but to also be ethical, moral, and even spiritual, the book provides skills and insights that are urgently needed to fathom and capitalize upon in the turbulent markets of today.