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Human Biases in Decision Making: Avoiding the Traps

October 7-8, 2024 | 8am-4:30pm | UT Campus or Live Online | $3,350

Enroll in this Course

This course is offered in a hybrid format.

You can select from 2 attendance options: in person (on campus) OR live online.

Upcoming Sessions

Class Details

Strategic Decision and Risk Management

Date

10/7/24 - 10/8/24

2 Days

Instructors

Eric Bickel

Katherine Weller

Location

UT Campus

Live Online

Human Biases in Decision Making: Avoiding the Traps

Strategic Decision and Risk Management

Date

10/7/24 - 10/8/24

2 Days

Instructors

Eric Bickel

Katherine Weller

Location

UT Campus

Live Online

Class

Concentration

Date

Location

Instructors

Human Biases in Decision Making: Avoiding the Traps

Strategic Decision and Risk Management

10/7/24 - 10/8/24

2 Days

UT Campus

Live Online

Eric Bickel

Katherine Weller

  • WHAT DEGRADES YOUR DECISION MAKING?

    The human mind isn’t wired to make high-quality decisions. Because of how our minds work, errors and pitfalls keep us from making decisions that add the most value. Understand how natural behavioral processes lead to biases, distortion, and mistakes. Explore preventive measures and techniques to reduce these biases, improve individual decisions and enrich organizational decision processes.

What You'll Learn

Biases and Impacts to Decision Making

  • Understand the ways in which your mind, personality, and social structures can degrade your decision-making.
  • Discover six categories of biases that produce most of the mistakes in decision making
  • Discuss how overconfidence, confirmation bias and hindsight bias can keep us from seeking critical information and making realistic judgments
  • Understand the limiting effects of unconscious self-serving biases in yourself and others

 

Associations Used to Make Judgements and their Impact

  • Examine five types of associations we use to make judgments which can be misleading
  • Recognize the distortions created by relative comparisons and simplification
  • Anticipate how capacity on perception, attention, memory, reasoning and choice influence our decisions

 

Ways to Mitigate or Reduce Biases

  • Balance conflict and cooperation to minimize the negative effects and increase the positive influences of group dynamics
  • Develop a personal action plan for counteracting natural decision problems and reducing the impact of negative decision behaviors in your organization

 

Attending this Course

  • Individuals

    This course is appropriate for those that want to make better decisions, and develop better processes for decision making within their team or across their organization.
  • Teams

    Organizations often send pairs or small teams, to support the launch of new initiatives.
  • Requirements & Credit

    There are no prerequisites for this course, but we recommend starting with our 'Decision Quality' class to learn the fundamentals. Participants earn 1.4 CEUs and/or 14 CPEs for this course, as well as a certificate of completion.

Looking for University Credit?

Our classes are available for university credit. Please contact Elizabeth Krieg for more information.

Course Kept Me Interested
Great mix of presentation and activity to keep attention.
Aerial view of the University of Texas tower and buildings with orange roofs.

Instructors

  • Eric Bickel
    Eric Bickel Headshot
    Eric Bickel

    Professor and Director, Graduate Program in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering

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  • Raghunath Rao
    Raghunath Rao Headshot
    Raghunath Rao

    Associate Professor, Marketing

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  • Katherine Weller
    Katherine Weller Headshot
    Katherine Weller

    Principal, Strategic Decisions Group

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Demonstrate Your Expertise with a Certificate

  • Reimbursement Options

    Learn more about course credits and options for course reimbursement. Get tips on the best way to approach your manager and download a customizable template to facilitate making the ask.
  • Course Location

    In person courses take place at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center and adjoining Rowling Hall on the UT campus in Austin. These world-class facilities provide a comfortable and convenient learning environment, with direct access to the 40 acres of campus and within walking distance of downtown Austin. Live online and on-demand course options are available for many courses.

In Partnership with Strategic Decisions Group

The Strategic Decision and Risk Management Certificate courses offered by Texas Executive Education combine The University of Texas at Austin’s academic and research depth with the decision and risk management expertise and track record of Strategic Decisions Group (SDG).

 

Strategic Decisions Group (SDG) is a global consulting firm with expertise in strategic decision making, risk management and shareholder value creation. SDG’s collaborative approach helps clients find innovative strategies for today while helping them build decision competency for the future.

 

Earn a Badge

We offer digital badges for select courses, which enable you to verify your skills and achievements. When you complete this course, you will earn a digital badge that you can showcase on your LinkedIn profile.

Strategic Decision and Risk Management

Additional Courses

Decision and Risk Analysis

Explore the foundations of decision quality and how to use a rigorous analytic framework to make better decisions in your personal and professional life.

Learn More

Decision Quality: Make the Right Choice Every Time

Learn how to frame strategic choices, generate alternatives, develop credible forecasts, quantify uncertainty and judge the quality of a decision at the time it is made.

Learn More

Leading Strategic Decision Making

Achieve success by effectively diagnosing a decision situation, designing a clear approach, facilitating communication, and presenting compelling rationale to key stakeholders.

Learn More

Modeling and Analytics for Strategic Insight

Create models that answer executives' questions, produce compelling analyses, and ultimately gain commitment.

Learn More

Multi-Party Decision Making: From Conflict to Resolution

Assemble concepts, tools, and skills for applying the DQ Framework in multi-party situations.

Learn More

Scenarios and Forecasting: Planning for Uncertainty

Improve strategic decision-making with enhanced forecasting methods and by leveraging scenarios to foster insight.

Learn More

Resources

  • Hand holding up magnifying glass with trees in the background.

    Decision Quality: Strategic Decision Making Through Framing & Alternatives

    Framing and finding alternatives are key links in the decision quality chain; necessary for determining if a decision is good or not.
  • Man in white shirt looks at a tablet.

    Decision Quality: Strategic Decision Making Through Information & Values

    Decision quality is a strategic decision making process used to judge the quality of a decision at the time it is being made.
  • People stand in front of a computer in an office.

    Decision Making: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

    Why do seemingly good decisions sometimes turn out all wrong? Conventional thinking often confuses decisions with outcomes.

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