ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to categorize the decision-making areas in terms of the problems involved and to define their characteristics. Before action comes decision, and before decision the investigation of a problem. The start of the process is the recognition and definition of a problem. ‘By analysing decision-making in stages to make certain it has: one, formulated the reasons for taking a decision and defined the problem to be solved: two, analysed the nature of the problem: and, three, examined the alternative solutions and their possible consequences.’ More definite assumptions will result in more positive predictions and an understanding of the problems of making good predictions is of extreme importance. The process of conceptual model-building is the truly numerate approach to the problems of prediction, and the transformation of the nature of the particular problem facing the manager is typical of the consequences that follow the adoption of any numerate approach.
