MANAGEMENT “GYAN” - SHOR MODEL FOR DECISION-MAKING IN UNCERTAINTY

MANAGEMENT “GYAN”

From my Academic Writing Archives:

Here is an article written more than 20 years ago, based on my lectures on Technology Management, on the Topic on SHOR MODEL FOR DECISION MAKING IN UNCERTAINTY

I have published this article in management journals in the 1990's and also posted this article on a number of my blogs from time to time since the year 2004, when I started blogging.

I am posting it once more for you to read:

SHOR MODEL FOR DECISION-MAKING IN UNCERTAINTY

By

VIKRAM KARVE

MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES

The phrase May You Live in Interesting Times while purporting to be a blessing, may actually be a curse, since the couched meaning is perhaps that may you experience much upheaval and trouble in your life, the clear implication being that uninteresting times of peace and tranquility are much better and far more life-enhancing. 

In present day interesting yet uncertain times we need an effective technique for making good decisions in situations of uncertainty. The SHOR paradigm is one such apt model.

Before we discuss the SHOR Model, let me tell you an apocryphal teaching story:

Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his followers.

While they were travelling, they happened to pass a lake.

They stopped there and Buddha told one of his disciples, “I am feeling thirsty. Please get me some water from that lake.” 

The disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the water, and right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake.  As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. 

The disciple thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink...?”

So he came back and told Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.”   

After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink.   

The disciple obediently went back to the lake.   

This time he found that the lake had absolutely clear water in it.  The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be consumed.  So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.   

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said, “See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be. And the mud settled down on its own – and you got clear water. Your mind is also like that! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.”

This story from the life of Buddha that highlights the fact that a calm mind leads to better decisions.

But in actual life, is it possible to remain calm when confronted with making decisions? Especially making decisions in situations of uncertainty. 

If a single most important characteristic is crucial to a decision-maker in any field, it is the ability to make optimal decisions in conditions of uncertainty.

A unique ability that sets humans apart from animals is self-awareness and the ability to choose how we respond to any stimulus. Animals do not have this independent will. They respond to a stimulus in a pre-programmed manner. If there is a threat stimulus the response is either fight or flight. We human beings too sometimes instantly follow the stimulus-response model.

It may be apt to remember that whenever we are confronted with any decision making situation, between Stimulus and Response there lies a space, a timeline, and in that space lies our freedom to choose a course of action, and in that choice lies our sagacity.

Hence, when confronted with a stimulus, instead of instantly responding, we must calm our minds, be self-aware, dispassionately analyse and evaluate the situation, draw up options and then choose the most suitable option as the response. 

(Remember the Story narrated above from the Life of Buddha)

When there is peace inside you, that peace permeates to the outside.  

This inner peace soon spreads around you and percolates into the environment and helps you make better decisions. 

Conversely, you could be in very peaceful surroundings, where everything is wonderfully beautiful, but if your inside is disturbed, then that beauty is of no use to you. 

For you to be peaceful, peace has to be generated from deep within you - from your being to the mind, and from the mind to the environment. 

For example, even if you have the best music system, you cannot truly enjoy music if you are mentally disturbed. 

In fact, it is more important to be in a sublime state of inner peace and to be in harmony with oneself in order to relish the finer things of life.

One of the factors that disturb your inner peace is uncertainty – many times uncertainty elicits sub-optimal responses if we use the Stimulus-Response (SR) Paradigm of decision making and hence there is need for a better model like the SHOR Paradigm, which is described below.

TYPES OF UNCERTAINTY

Decision-making is so pervasive that everyone, professionally or personally, is involved with making a variety of decisions. 

In today’s fast-moving world, the timing of a decision is of paramount importance in many decision-making situations.

In real life even the “perfect” decision may not be optimal if it is made too late.  

Information is a vital resource in decision-making.

One of the most important characteristics of successful managers is the ability to make the correct decision when confronted with imperfect or insufficient information (i.e.) Decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.

In the context of decision-processing, two realms or domains of uncertainty are:

1. Information Input Uncertainty which creates the need for hypothesis generation and evaluation.

2. Consequence-of-Action Uncertainty which creates the need for option generation and evaluation.

SHOR PARADIGM

 

Decision Taxonomy: 

The Stimulus – Hypothesis – Option – Response (SHOR) Paradigm decision making model is useful in such decision situations.

The SHOR paradigm represents a qualitative, descriptive, model as distinct from a quantitative, predictive model, and comprises the following primary decision-making task elements:

S: Stimulus Input Data Processing

H: Hypothesis Generation, Hypothesis Evaluation, Information Processing (What is?)

O: Option Generation, Option Evaluation, Decision-Making (What if?)

R: Response Output Action 

The SHOR paradigm is basically an extension of the classical “Stimulus – Response” (SR) Paradigm of behaviorist psychology.

The SHOR paradigm provides explicitly for the necessity to deal with information input uncertainty and consequence-of-action uncertainty, and helps us understand some of the peculiar human factors that affect the quality of the decision-making and answering questions such as:

What makes some decision-makers perform better than others, especially in placing high-value assets at risk, in business?

What are the sources and dimensions of “poor” performance?

HUMAN ERRORS IN DECISION-MAKING

Based on the SHOR Model, human errors in decision-making appear to lie in four domains:

 

(S) Stimulus: “I did not know…”

(H) Hypothesis: “I did not understand…”

(O) Option: “I did not consider…”

(R) Response: “I did not act…”

Stimulus based errors of the type “I did not know…” result from lack or inadequacy of information, the true inability to obtain information.

“I did not understand…” is the fundamental result of information input uncertainty, while “I did not consider…” is the product of consequence-of-action uncertainty. 

It is possible to have accessed all significant information, to have developed the correct hypothesis and to have selected the best option and yet fail to take appropriate action.

The two possible reasons for the “I did not act…” type of response error are:

1. Paralysis: This is a complete failure to act, the pathological ‘observation of an inevitable course’ without intervention. It is caused by an over-riding emotional struggle in which some internal factor is being placed in conflict with the course of action selected by the decision-maker. The final scene in the evergreen classic film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) exemplifies such a situation.

2. Misjudgement: The decision-maker correctly decides what to do but errs in either or both of the two dimensions – how [the specifics of the action] or when [the timing of the action].

Prediction of the critical consequences of inaction may be of some help in dealing with paralysis whilst the ability to perform sensitivity analyses may assist in alleviating misjudgment.  

Any Decision-Maker (and designers of decision processors and aids) must address the four cardinal types of errors epitomized by the SHOR paradigm: “I did not know…”, “I did not understand…”, “I did not consider…” and “I did not act…”

DECISION-MAKING IN UNCERTAINTY

In the context of decision-making in uncertainty, the conflict theory paradigm developed by Janis and Mann may be apt.

This paradigm postulates five patterns of coping behaviour which tends to occur in such situations:

1. Unconflicted Adherence in which the uncertain, or risk, information is ignored and the decision-maker complacently decides to continue whatever he has been doing.

2. Unconflicted Change to a new course of action, where the decision-maker uncritically adopts whichever new course of action is most salient, obvious or strongly recommended.

3. Defensive Avoidance in which the decision-maker evades conflict by procrastinating, shifting responsibility to someone else, or constructing wishful rationalizations and remaining selectively inattentive to corrective information.

4. Hyper-vigilance wherein the decision-maker searches frantically for a way out of the dilemma and impulsively seizes upon a hastily contrived solution that seems to promise immediate relief, overlooking the full range of consequences of his choice because of emotional excitement, repetitive thinking and cognitive constriction. In its most extreme form hyper-vigilance is referred to as “panic”.

5. Concerned Vigilance in which the decision-maker optimally processes pertinent information and then generates and evaluates hypotheses and options before selecting a response as characterized by the SHOR paradigm.

In many real-life situations a decision-maker cannot always keep waiting until the entire information-input and consequence-of-action conditions are known a priori with certainty.

In most cases there is no such thing as “perfect” certainty.

If a single most important characteristic is crucial to a decision-maker in any field, it is the ability to make optimal decisions in conditions of uncertainty.

Qualitative Descriptive Models like the SHOR Paradigm may prove useful in such situations.

CONCLUSION

As we discussed in the beginning, the phrase May You Live in Interesting Times while purporting to be a blessing, may actually be a curse, since the couched meaning is perhaps that may you experience much upheaval and trouble in your life, the clear implication being that uninteresting times of peace and tranquility are much better and far more life-enhancing. 

In these interesting yet uncertain times, recent events have demonstrated the failure of the Stimulus-Response (SR) Model of decision-making and underlined the need for expertise for making good decisions in situations of uncertainty. 

I am sure that in your life you have witnessed many of the concepts mentioned in the article above. 

First there was Information Input Uncertainty followed by Consequence of Action Uncertainty which caused Human Errors in decision-making and leading to Misjudgment and finally a state of Paralysis in Decision Making.

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 
1. If you share this post, please give due credit to the author Vikram Karve
2. Please DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. Please DO NOT Cut/Copy/Paste this post
© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

Disclaimer:

1. These are my personal views based on my observations and life experiences and the stories and examples quoted may be apocryphal.

2. All stories in this blog are a work of fiction. Events, Places, Settings and Incidents narrated in the story are a figment of my imagination. The characters do not exist and are purely imaginary. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright Notice:

No part of this Blog may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Blog Author Vikram Karve who holds the copyright.

Copyright © Vikram Karve (All Rights Reserved)

     

© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

 

INFORMATION PROCESSING - Cognitive Biases

HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING – A SOFT SYSTEM



Cognition and Information



By



VIKRAM KARVE





Part I – Cognitive Biases




The term cognition refers to a faculty for the processing of information. It is the process of perceiving, thinking, reasoning, analyzing and remembering.
 Information is value or quality of a message or communication between a sender and a receiver.

Data is observation of facts and information is a collection of data from which conclusions may be drawn, decisions taken and knowledge acquired.

Understanding Human Behaviour is sine qua non for the successful design and implementation of Soft Systems [Human Activity Systems], Management Information Systems and, indeed, all Information Processing Systems.



Human behaviour plays an important role in human information processing. It must be remembered that Information Systems are not installed in a vacuum; they are implanted into a living body, an organisation, a Human Activity Systems.

Human beings are being continuously exposed to an enormous number of stimuli. Cognition of all the stimuli is not possible and most stimuli are eliminated by a complex cognitive process. Even those stimuli which are perceived may be subject to cognitive biases.



A better understanding of human information processing enhances the usefulness of information technology and systems.



COGNITIVE BIASES



Here are a few salient cognitive biases which affect information formulation, acquisition, analysis and interpretation:



Adjustment and Anchoring – In situations of information overload there is a tendency to resort to the anchoring and adjustment heuristic and to rely too heavily, or “anchor” on a past reference or on one trait or piece of information when making decisions. For example, you may emphasize too much on the first piece of information you encounter.


Selective Perception – You accept / absorb only that information that is in consonance with, or confirms, your views, beliefs and values.



Wishful Thinking – You interpret information according to what might be pleasing to imagine [as you would like things to be] rather than according to actual evidence or rational logical reality.



Self-fulfilling Prophecy – is the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm our beliefs. You seek, acquire and analyze only that information that confirms or lends credibility to your views and values and ignore any information that contradicts your views or values. This is a “Confirmation bias” exemplified by an irrational tendency to search for, interpret or remember information in a way that confirms your preconceptions.


Ease of Recall – Information which can easily be recalled or accessed affects your perception of the likelihood of similar events occurring again. You rely too much on information that is easy to recall from memory.



Conservation – You reach premature conclusions on the basis of too small a sample of information.

Order Effects – The order in which information is presented to you affects information retention in your memory. Typically, the first piece of information presented [primacy effect] and the last piece of information presented [recency effect] assume undue importance in your mind.

Overconfidence – The greater the amount of data the more confident you are about the accuracy of the data.



Availability – you only rely on and use easily available information and ignore significant information that may not be so easily sourced.



Bandwagon Effect – you develop a tendency to believe information because many other people believe the same information. This may be a manifestation of Groupthink and you tend to “jump on the bandwagon”.



Hindsight – you are unable to think objectively if you receive information that a certain outcome has occurred and then told to ignore this information. With hindsight, outcomes that have occurred seem to have been inevitable; sometimes this is called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the inclination to see past events as being predictable. You see relationships more easily in hindsight than in foresight.



Habit – You choose some information because it was previously accepted for a perceived similar purpose [precedence syndrome] or because of superstition.


Illusion of Control – You develop a tendency for to believe you can control or at least influence outcomes that you clearly cannot and hence you will seek, interpret, process and use information accordingly in an irrational manner.



Gambler’s Fallacy – You falsely assume that an unexpected occurrence of a “run” of some events enhances the probability of occurrence of an event that has not occurred. You develop a tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events (when in reality it is not so) and process information accordingly.



Déformation professionnelle – you tend to process information according to the conventions of your own profession, forgetting any broader point of view. You fall victim to the Law of the Hammer – “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” – this may happen owing to overspecialization or too straitjacketed professional training which hampers a liberal broad perspective.

To be continued…

VIKRAM KARVE

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

vikramkarve@sify.com

NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING [NLP] Made Simple

NLP MADE SIMPLE

THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY

By

VIKRAM KARVE



“The map is not the territory!”

What does this mean?

Liehtse’s famous parable of The Old Man at the Fort is perhaps apt to illustrate this concept:-

An Old Man was living with his Son at an abandoned fort on the top of a hill, and one day he lost a horse.

The neighbours came to express their sympathy for this misfortune, but the Old Man asked, “How do you know this bad luck? The fact is that one horse is missing and there is one horse less in the stables. That is the fact. Whether it is good luck or bad luck – well that is a matter of judgment.”

A few days afterwards, his horse returned with a number of wild horses, and his neighbours came again to congratulate him on this stroke of fortune, and the Old Man replied, “How do you know this is good luck? The fact is that there are more horses in my stable than before. Whether it is good luck or bad luck – well that is a matter of opinion.”

With so many horses around, his son began to take to riding, and one day while riding a wild horse he was thrown off and broke his leg. Again the neighbours came around to express their sympathy, and the Old Man replied, “How do you know this is bad luck?”

A few days later a war broke out and all the able bodied men were forcibly conscripted into the army, sent to the warfront to fight and most of them were killed.

Because the Old Man’s son had a broken leg he did not have to go to the war front and his life was saved and everyone in the village who had lost their sons in the war were envious at the Old Man’s good fortune, but this time they did not say anything to the Old Man as they knew what his response would be.

This parable drives home the lesson that there are no such things like good luck and bad luck.

What disturbs you are not events but your attitude towards them.

You must learn to distinguish between facts and your attitude or judgment towards those facts.

It’s all in the mind.

Facts are like territory – ground reality.

But the way you interpret or judge those facts, your attitude towards them, depends on your mental map.

This mental map is formed due to your values, beliefs and experiences and you tend to view the actual facts or events (territory) through mental filters based on your values, beliefs, biases, prejudices and experiences which form your mental map.

Remember, just like the actual physical geographical territory exists on the ground and its map is drawn on paper, actual facts and events happen in reality and each one of us interprets them depending on the different maps prevalent in our minds.

Events, by themselves, don’t hurt you.

It is your attitudes and responses to those events (mental maps) that disturb you and give you trouble.

It then becomes your paramount duty to introspect and continuously redesign your mental maps to develop the correct attitude and responses towards external events.

When something happens the only thing in your power is your attitude towards it.

We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.

The secret of inner calm resides within you.

You just have to develop the proper mental “maps” and the correct attitude in your mind, so that you are not disturbed by the vicissitudes of external events which are akin to the outside “territory”.

Remember - “THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY”.


VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/

mailto:vikramkarve@sify.com%C2%A0

COGNITIVE BIAS

Cognition and Information



By



VIKRAM KARVE





Part I – Cognitive Biases





The term cognition refers to a faculty for the processing of information. It is the process of perceiving, thinking, reasoning, analyzing and remembering.



Information is the value or quality of a message or communication between a sender and a receiver. Data is observation of facts and information is a collection of data from which conclusions may be drawn, decisions taken and knowledge acquired.



Understanding Human Behaviour is sine qua non for the successful design and implementation of Soft Systems [Human Activity Systems], Management Information Systems and, indeed, all Information Processing Systems.



Human behaviour plays an important role in human information processing.



It must be remembered that Information Systems are not installed in a vacuum; they are implanted into a living body, an organisation, a Human Activity Systems.



Human beings are being continuously exposed to an enormous number of stimuli. Cognition of all the stimuli is not possible and most stimuli are eliminated by a complex cognitive process. Even those perceived may be subject to cognitive biases.



A better understanding of human information processing enhances the usefulness of information technology and systems.





COGNITIVE BIASES






Here are a few salient cognitive biases which affect information formulation, acquisition, analysis and interpretation:



Adjustment and Anchoring – In situations of information overload there is a tendency to resort to the anchoring and adjustment heuristic and to rely too heavily, or “anchor” on a past reference or on one trait or piece of information when making decisions. For example, you may emphasize too much on the first piece of information you encounter.



Selective Perception – You accept / absorb only that information that is in consonance with, or confirms, your views, beliefs and values.



Wishful Thinking – You interpret information according to what might be pleasing to imagine [as you would like things to be] rather than according to actual evidence or rational logical reality.



Self-fulfilling Prophecy – is the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm our beliefs. You seek, acquire and analyze only that information that confirms or lends credibility to your views and values and ignore any information that contradicts your views or values. This is a “Confirmation bias” exemplified by an irrational tendency to search for, interpret or remember information in a way that confirms your preconceptions.



Ease of Recall – Information which can easily be recalled or accessed affects your perception of the likelihood of similar events occurring again. You rely too much on information that is easy to recall from memory.



Conservation – You reach premature conclusions on the basis of too small a sample of information.



Order Effects – The order in which information is presented to you affects information retention in your memory. Typically, the first piece of information presented [primacy effect] and the last piece of information presented [recency effect] assume undue importance in your mind.



Overconfidence – The greater the amount of data the more confident you are about the accuracy of the data.



Availability – you only rely on and use easily available information and ignore significant information that may not be so easily sourced.



Bandwagon Effect – you develop a tendency to believe information because many other people believe the same information. This may be a manifestation of Groupthink and you tend to “jump on the bandwagon”.



Hindsight – you are unable to think objectively if you receive information that a certain outcome has occurred and then told to ignore this information. With hindsight, outcomes that have occurred seem to have been inevitable; sometimes this is called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the inclination to see past events as being predictable. You see relationships more easily in hindsight than in foresight.



Habit – You choose some information because it was previously accepted for a perceived similar purpose [precedence syndrome] or because of superstition.



Illusion of Control – You develop a tendency for to believe you can control or at least influence outcomes that you clearly cannot and hence you will seek, interpret, process and use information accordingly in an irrational manner.



Gambler’s Fallacy – You falsely assume that an unexpected occurrence of a “run” of some events enhances the probability of occurrence of an event that has not occurred. You develop a tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events (when in reality it is not so) and process information accordingly.



Déformation professionnelle – you tend to process information according to the conventions of your own profession, forgetting any broader point of view. You fall victim to the Law of the Hammer – “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” – this may happen owing to overspecialization or too straitjacketed professional training which hampers a liberal broad perspective.





[To be continued…]




VIKRAM KARVE


http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve


http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/


vikramkarve@sify.com

Cognition and Information

HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING – A SOFT SYSTEM

Cognition and Information

By

VIKRAM KARVE


Part I – Cognitive Biases


The term cognition refers to a faculty for the processing of information. It is the process of perceiving, thinking, reasoning, analyzing and remembering.

Information is value or quality of a message or communication between a sender and a receiver. Data is observation of facts and information is a collection of data from which conclusions may be drawn, decisions taken and knowledge acquired.

Understanding Human Behaviour is sine qua non for the successful design and implementation of Soft Systems [Human Activity Systems], Management Information Systems and, indeed, all Information Processing Systems.

Human behaviour plays an important role in human information processing. It must be remembered that Information Systems are not installed in a vacuum; they are implanted into a living body, an organisation, a Human Activity Systems.

Human beings are being continuously exposed to an enormous number of stimuli. Cognition of all the stimuli is not possible and most stimuli are eliminated by a complex cognitive process. Even those perceived may be subject to cognitive biases.

A better understanding of human information processing enhances the usefulness of information technology and systems.


COGNITIVE BIASES


Here are a few salient cognitive biases which affect information formulation, acquisition, analysis and interpretation:

Adjustment and Anchoring – In situations of information overload there is a tendency to resort to the anchoring and adjustment heuristic and to rely too heavily, or “anchor” on a past reference or on one trait or piece of information when making decisions. For example, you may emphasize too much on the first piece of information you encounter.

Selective Perception – You accept / absorb only that information that is in consonance with, or confirms, your views, beliefs and values.

Wishful Thinking – You interpret information according to what might be pleasing to imagine [as you would like things to be] rather than according to actual evidence or rational logical reality.

Self-fulfilling Prophecy – is the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm our beliefs. You seek, acquire and analyze only that information that confirms or lends credibility to your views and values and ignore any information that contradicts your views or values. This is a “Confirmation bias” exemplified by an irrational tendency to search for, interpret or remember information in a way that confirms your preconceptions.

Ease of Recall – Information which can easily be recalled or accessed affects your perception of the likelihood of similar events occurring again. You rely too much on information that is easy to recall from memory.

Conservation – You reach premature conclusions on the basis of too small a sample of information.

Order Effects – The order in which information is presented to you affects information retention in your memory. Typically, the first piece of information presented [primacy effect] and the last piece of information presented [recency effect] assume undue importance in your mind.

Overconfidence – The greater the amount of data the more confident you are about the accuracy of the data.

Availability – you only rely on and use easily available information and ignore significant information that may not be so easily sourced.

Bandwagon Effect – you develop a tendency to believe information because many other people believe the same information. This may be a manifestation of Groupthink and you tend to “jump on the bandwagon”.

Hindsight – you are unable to think objectively if you receive information that a certain outcome has occurred and then told to ignore this information. With hindsight, outcomes that have occurred seem to have been inevitable; sometimes this is called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the inclination to see past events as being predictable. You see relationships more easily in hindsight than in foresight.

Habit – You choose some information because it was previously accepted for a perceived similar purpose [precedence syndrome] or because of superstition.

Illusion of Control – You develop a tendency for to believe you can control or at least influence outcomes that you clearly cannot and hence you will seek, interpret, process and use information accordingly in an irrational manner.

Gambler’s Fallacy – You falsely assume that an unexpected occurrence of a “run” of some events enhances the probability of occurrence of an event that has not occurred. You develop a tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events (when in reality it is not so) and process information accordingly.

Déformation professionnelle – you tend to process information according to the conventions of your own profession, forgetting any broader point of view. You fall victim to the Law of the Hammer – “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” – this may happen owing to overspecialization or too straitjacketed professional training which hampers a liberal broad perspective.


[To be continued…]


VIKRAM KARVE

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

vikramkarve@sify.com

SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO

SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO [SDR]

[Here is an article on SDR compiled by my students Shijesh, Sibil, Shyju and John by browsing the internet, books and journals]


The rapid growth of technology and changing trends in the Communication techniques has paved way for the introduction of many telecommunication devices, many of which are not feasible to modify cost effectively due to lack of flexibility in their implementation. Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology mitigates this problem by providing the flexibility through software.

Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is a rapidly evolving technology that is receiving enormous recognition and generating widespread interest in the telecommunication industry. Over the last few years, analog radio systems are being replaced by digital radio systems and programmable hardware modules are increasingly being used in digital radio systems at different functional levels. SDR technology aims to take advantage of these programmable hardware modules to build open-architecture based radio system software.

An SDR system is a radio communication system where components that have typically been implemented in hardware are instead implemented using software on embedded computing devices. In other words SDR is a Radio in which some or all of the physical layer functions are software defined.

A Radio is any kind of device that wirelessly transmits or receives signals in the radio frequency (RF) part of the electromagnetic spectrum to facilitate the transfer of information.

In today's world, radios exist in a multitude of items such as cell phones, computers, car door openers, vehicles, and televisions.

While the concept of SDR is not new, the rapidly evolving capabilities of digital electronics are practical enabling many processes that were once only theoretically possible.

In the past, radio systems were designed to communicate using one or two waveforms [waveform here refers to any specific standard like Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) or it can be as simple as Frequency or Amplitude Modulation (FM or AM)].

As a result, two groups of people with different types of traditional radio were not able to communicate due to incompatibility problems. The need to communicate with people using different types of equipment can only be solved using software programmable radios because of its flexible architecture.

Traditional hardware based radio devices limit cross-functionality and can only be modified through physical intervention. This results in higher production costs and minimal flexibility in supporting multiple waveform standards. By contrast, software defined radio technology provides an efficient and comparatively inexpensive solution to this problem, allowing multi-mode, multi-band and/or multi-functional wireless devices that can be enhanced using software upgrades.

The primary goal of SDR is to replace as many analog components and hardwired digital VLSI devices of the transceiver (radio) as possible with programmable devices.

Some of the advantages of SDR are:

Multifunctionality. The same piece of hardware i.e. the radio set can be used to transmit, receive and process different communication signals that adhere to different air interface standards. This can be done simply by reconfiguring the software.

Global Mobility. The same piece of hardware i.e. the radio set can be used in different parts of the world that endorse different air interface standards. This can again be done simply by reconfiguring the software.

Compactness and power efficient design. Unlike traditional non-SDR systems, which require multiple hardware sets for multi-functional communication, the same piece of SDR hardware can be reduced for such a purpose. This results in compact and power –efficient design, especially as the number of systems increases.

Ease of manufacture. A SDR comprises of fewer hardware parts than a traditional radio since most processing is done in software within a general-purpose microprocessors or special purpose microprocessors like the DSP, or in reconfigurable hardware including FPGAs. This eases the production cycle for the manufacturer with lesser parts to standardize and produce.

Ease of upgrades. Any service upgrade can be easily introduced through the release of new software versions without the expense of recalling or replacing the hardware units. A user can simply download the software off the internet and load it into the SDR.
The most significant asset of SDR is versatility. Wireless systems employ protocols that vary from one service to another. Even in the same type of service, for example wireless fax, the protocol often differs from country to country. A single SDR set with an all-inclusive software repertoire can be used in any mode, anywhere in the world. Changing the service type, the mode, and/or the modulation protocol involves simply selecting and launching the requisite program, and making sure the batteries are adequately charged if portable operation is contemplated.

The ultimate goal of SDR engineers is to provide a single radio transceiver capable of playing the roles of GSM phone, CDMA phone, Wimax terminal, wireless fax, wireless Web browser, Global Positioning System (GPS) unit, and other functions still in the realm of science fiction.


VIKRAM KARVE

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

vikramkarve@sify.com

SHOR Information Processing Model

The SHOR Paradigm

By

VIKRAM KARVE



“The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides” …Frederic Amiel



Decision-making is so pervasive that everyone, professionally or personally, is involved with making a variety of decisions.

In today’s fast-moving world, the timing of a decision is of paramount importance in many decision-making situations. In real life even the “perfect” decision may not be optimal if it is made too late.

Information is a vital resource in decision-making. One of the most important characteristics of successful managers is the ability to make the correct decision when confronted with imperfect or insufficient information (i.e.) Decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.

In the context of decision-processing, two realms or domains of uncertainty are:

1. Information Input Uncertainty which creates the need for hypothesis generation and evaluation;

2. Consequence-of-Action Uncertainty which creates the need for option generation and evaluation.


THE SHOR PARADIGM


A decision taxonomy: The Stimulus – Hypothesis – Options – Response (SHOR) Paradigm, formulated by Wohl, is useful in such decision situations. The SHOR paradigm represents a qualitative, descriptive, model as distinct from a quantitative, predictive model, and comprises three primary decision-making task elements:

S: Stimulus Input Data Processing
H: Hypothesis Generation, Hypothesis Evaluation, Information Processing [What is?]
O: Option Generation, Option Evaluation, Decision-Making [What if?]
R: Response Output Action

The SHOR paradigm is basically an extension of the classical Stimulus – Response (SR) Paradigm of behaviourist psychology.

The SHOR paradigm provides explicitly for the necessity to deal with information input uncertainty and consequence-of-action uncertainty, and helps us understand some of the peculiar human factors that affect the quality of the decision-making and answering questions such as:

What makes some decision-makers perform better than others, especially in placing high-value assets at risk, in business?

What are the sources and dimensions of “poor” performance?


HUMAN ERRORS IN DECISION-MAKING


Based on the SHOR Model, human errors in decision-making appear to lie in four domains:

(S) Stimulus: “I didn’t know…”
(H) Hypothesis: “I didn’t understand…”
(O) Options: “I didn’t consider…”
(R) Response: “I didn’t act…”

Stimulus based errors of the type “I didn’t know…” result from lack or inadequacy of information, the true inability to obtain information.

“I didn’t understand…” is the fundamental result of information input uncertainty, while “I didn’t consider…” is the product of consequence-of-action uncertainty.

It is possible to have accessed all significant information, to have developed the correct hypothesis and to have selected the best option and yet fail to take appropriate action. The two possible reasons for the “I didn’t act…” type of response error are:

1. Paralysis: This is a complete failure to act, the pathological ‘observation of an inevitable course’ without intervention. It is caused by an over-riding emotional struggle in which some internal factor is being placed in conflict with the course of action selected by the decision-maker. The final scene in the evergreen classic film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) exemplifies such a situation.

2. Misjudgement: The decision-maker correctly decides what to do but errs in either or both of the two dimensions – how [the specifics of the action] or when [the timing of the action].

Prediction of the critical consequences of inaction may be of some help in dealing with paralysis whilst the ability to perform sensitivity analyses may assist in alleviating misjudgement.

Any Decision-Maker [and designers of decision aids] must address the four cardinal types of errors epitomized by the SHOR paradigm: “I didn’t know…”, “I didn’t understand…”, “I didn’t consider…” and “I didn’t act…”



DECISION-MAKING IN UNCERTAINTY


In the context of decision-making in uncertainty, the conflict theory paradigm developed by Janis and Mann may be apt. This paradigm postulates five patterns of coping behaviour which tends to occur in such situations:

1. Unconflicted Adherence in which the uncertain, or risk, information is ignored and the decision-maker complacently decides to continue whatever he has been doing.

2. Unconflicted Change to a new course of action, where the decision-maker uncritically adopts whichever new course of action is most salient, obvious or strongly recommended.

3. Defensive Avoidance in which the decision-maker evades conflict by procrastinating, shifting responsibility to someone else, or constructing wishful rationalisations and remaining selectively inattentive to corrective information.

4. Hypervigilance wherein the decision-maker searches frantically for a way out of the dilemma and impulsively seizes upon a hastily contrived solution that seems to promise immediate relief, overlooking the full range of consequences of his choice because of emotional excitement, repetitive thinking and cognitive constriction. In its most extreme form hypervigilance is referred to as “panic”.

5. Concerned Vigilance in which the decision-maker optimally processes pertinent information, generates and evaluates hypotheses and options before selecting a response as characterised by the SHOR paradigm.


In many real-life situations a decision-maker cannot always keep waiting until the entire information-input and consequence-of-action conditions are known a priori with certainty. In most cases there is no such thing as “perfect” certainty.

If a single most important characteristic is crucial to a decision-maker in any field, it is the ability to make optimal decisions in conditions of uncertainty. Qualitative descriptive models like the SHOR paradigm may prove useful in such situations.

To quote Frederic Amiel once again: “The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides”.


VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.


vikramkarve@sify.com

vikramkarve@hotmail.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/

http://www.ryze.com/go/karve

SHOR

The SHOR Paradigm

By

VIKRAM KARVE



“The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides” …Frederic Amiel



Decision-making is so pervasive that everyone, professionally or personally, is involved with making a variety of decisions.

In today’s fast-moving world, the timing of a decision is of paramount importance in many decision-making situations. In real life even the “perfect” decision may not be optimal if it is made too late.

Information is a vital resource in decision-making. One of the most important characteristics of successful managers is the ability to make the correct decision when confronted with imperfect or insufficient information (i.e.) Decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.

In the context of decision-processing, two realms or domains of uncertainty are:

1. Information Input Uncertainty which creates the need for hypothesis generation and evaluation;

2. Consequence-of-Action Uncertainty which creates the need for option generation and evaluation.


THE SHOR PARADIGM


A decision taxonomy: The Stimulus – Hypothesis – Options – Response (SHOR) paradigm, formulated by Wohl, is useful in such decision situations. The SHOR paradigm represents a qualitative, descriptive, model as distinct from a quantitative, predictive model, and comprises three primary decision-making task elements:
S: Stimulus Input Data Processing
H: Hypothesis Generation, Hypothesis Evaluation, Information Processing [What is?]
O: Option Generation, Option Evaluation, Decision-Making [What if?]
R: Response Output Action

The SHOR paradigm is basically an extension of the classical Stimulus – Response (SR) Paradigm of behaviourist psychology. The SHOR paradigm provides explicitly for the necessity to deal with information input uncertainty and consequence-of-action uncertainty, and helps us understand some of the peculiar human factors that affect the quality of the decision-making and answering questions such as:
What makes some decision-makers perform better than others, especially in placing high-value assets at risk, in business?
What are the sources and dimensions of “poor” performance?


HUMAN ERRORS IN DECISION-MAKING


Based on the SHOR Model, human errors in decision-making appear to lie in four domains:

(S) Stimulus: “I didn’t know…”
(H) Hypothesis: “I didn’t understand…”
(O) Options: “I didn’t consider…”
(R) Response: “I didn’t act…”

Stimulus based errors of the type “I didn’t know…” result from lack or inadequacy of information, the true inability to obtain information.

“I didn’t understand…” is the fundamental result of information input uncertainty, while “I didn’t consider…” is the product of consequence-of-action uncertainty.

It is possible to have accessed all significant information, to have developed the correct hypothesis and to have selected the best option and yet fail to take appropriate action. The two possible reasons for the “I didn’t act…” type of response error are:

1. Paralysis: This is a complete failure to act, the pathological ‘observation of an inevitable course’ without intervention. It is caused by an over-riding emotional struggle in which some internal factor is being placed in conflict with the course of action selected by the decision-maker. The final scene in the evergreen classic film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) exemplifies such a situation.

2. Misjudgement: The decision-maker correctly decides what to do but errs in either or both of the two dimensions – how [the specifics of the action] or when [the timing of the action].

Prediction of the critical consequences of inaction may be of some help in dealing with paralysis whilst the ability to perform sensitivity analyses may assist in alleviating misjudgement.

Any Decision-Maker [and designers of decision aids] must address the four cardinal types of errors epitomized by the SHOR paradigm: “I didn’t know…”, “I didn’t understand…”, “I didn’t consider…” and “I didn’t act…”



DECISION-MAKING IN UNCERTAINTY


In the context of decision-making in uncertainty, the conflict theory paradigm developed by Janis and Mann may be apt. This paradigm postulates five patterns of coping behaviour which tends to occur in such situations:

1. Unconflicted Adherence in which the uncertain, or risk, information is ignored and the decision-maker complacently decides to continue whatever he has been doing.

2. Unconflicted Change to a new course of action, where the decision-maker uncritically adopts whichever new course of action is most salient, obvious or strongly recommended.

3. Defensive Avoidance in which the decision-maker evades conflict by procrastinating, shifting responsibility to someone else, or constructing wishful rationalisations and remaining selectively inattentive to corrective information.

4. Hypervigilance wherein the decision-maker searches frantically for a way out of the dilemma and impulsively seizes upon a hastily contrived solution that seems to promise immediate relief, overlooking the full range of consequences of his choice because of emotional excitement, repetitive thinking and cognitive constriction. In its most extreme form hypervigilance is referred to as “panic”.

5. Concerned Vigilance in which the decision-maker optimally processes pertinent information, generates and evaluates hypotheses and options before selecting a response as characterised by the SHOR paradigm.


In many real-life situations a decision-maker cannot always keep waiting until the entire information-input and consequence-of-action conditions are known a priori with certainty. In most cases there is no such thing as “perfect” certainty.

If a single most important characteristic is crucial to a decision-maker in any field, it is the ability to make optimal decisions in conditions of uncertainty. Qualitative descriptive models like the SHOR paradigm may prove useful in such situations.

To quote Frederic Amiel once again: “The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides”.


VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.


vikramkarve@sify.com

vikramkarve@hotmail.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/

http://www.ryze.com/go/karve

The SHOR Paradigm

The SHOR Paradigm

[Decision-making in Uncertainty]

By

VIKRAM KARVE



“The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides” …Frederic Amiel



Decision-making is so pervasive that everyone, professionally or personally, is involved with making a variety of decisions.

In today’s fast-moving world, the timing of a decision is of paramount importance in many decision-making situations. In real life even the “perfect” decision may not be optimal if it is made too late.

Information is a vital resource in decision-making. One of the most important characteristics of successful managers is the ability to make the correct decision when confronted with imperfect or insufficient information (i.e.) Decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.

In the context of decision-processing, two realms or domains of uncertainty are:

1. Information Input Uncertainty which creates the need for hypothesis generation and evaluation;

2. Consequence-of-Action Uncertainty which creates the need for option generation and evaluation.


THE SHOR PARADIGM


A decision taxonomy: The Stimulus – Hypothesis – Options – Response (SHOR) paradigm, formulated by Wohl, is useful in such decision situations. The SHOR paradigm represents a qualitative, descriptive, model as distinct from a quantitative, predictive model, and comprises three primary decision-making task elements:
S: Stimulus Input Data Processing
H: Hypothesis Generation, Hypothesis Evaluation, Information Processing [What is?]
O: Option Generation, Option Evaluation, Decision-Making [What if?]
R: Response Output Action

The SHOR paradigm is basically an extension of the classical Stimulus – Response (SR) Paradigm of behaviourist psychology. The SHOR paradigm provides explicitly for the necessity to deal with information input uncertainty and consequence-of-action uncertainty, and helps us understand some of the peculiar human factors that affect the quality of the decision-making and answering questions such as:
What makes some decision-makers perform better than others, especially in placing high-value assets at risk, in business?
What are the sources and dimensions of “poor” performance?


HUMAN ERRORS IN DECISION-MAKING


Based on the SHOR Model, human errors in decision-making appear to lie in four domains:

(S) Stimulus: “I didn’t know…”
(H) Hypothesis: “I didn’t understand…”
(O) Options: “I didn’t consider…”
(R) Response: “I didn’t act…”

Stimulus based errors of the type “I didn’t know…” result from lack or inadequacy of information, the true inability to obtain information.

“I didn’t understand…” is the fundamental result of information input uncertainty, while “I didn’t consider…” is the product of consequence-of-action uncertainty.

It is possible to have accessed all significant information, to have developed the correct hypothesis and to have selected the best option and yet fail to take appropriate action. The two possible reasons for the “I didn’t act…” type of response error are:

1. Paralysis: This is a complete failure to act, the pathological ‘observation of an inevitable course’ without intervention. It is caused by an over-riding emotional struggle in which some internal factor is being placed in conflict with the course of action selected by the decision-maker. The final scene in the evergreen classic film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) exemplifies such a situation.

2. Misjudgement: The decision-maker correctly decides what to do but errs in either or both of the two dimensions – how [the specifics of the action] or when [the timing of the action].

Prediction of the critical consequences of inaction may be of some help in dealing with paralysis whilst the ability to perform sensitivity analyses may assist in alleviating misjudgement.

Any Decision-Maker [and designers of decision aids] must address the four cardinal types of errors epitomized by the SHOR paradigm: “I didn’t know…”, “I didn’t understand…”, “I didn’t consider…” and “I didn’t act…”



DECISION-MAKING IN UNCERTAINTY


In the context of decision-making in uncertainty, the conflict theory paradigm developed by Janis and Mann may be apt. This paradigm postulates five patterns of coping behaviour which tends to occur in such situations:

1. Unconflicted Adherence in which the uncertain, or risk, information is ignored and the decision-maker complacently decides to continue whatever he has been doing.

2. Unconflicted Change to a new course of action, where the decision-maker uncritically adopts whichever new course of action is most salient, obvious or strongly recommended.

3. Defensive Avoidance in which the decision-maker evades conflict by procrastinating, shifting responsibility to someone else, or constructing wishful rationalisations and remaining selectively inattentive to corrective information.

4. Hypervigilance wherein the decision-maker searches frantically for a way out of the dilemma and impulsively seizes upon a hastily contrived solution that seems to promise immediate relief, overlooking the full range of consequences of his choice because of emotional excitement, repetitive thinking and cognitive constriction. In its most extreme form hypervigilance is referred to as “panic”.

5. Concerned Vigilance in which the decision-maker optimally processes pertinent information, generates and evaluates hypotheses and options before selecting a response as characterised by the SHOR paradigm.


In many real-life situations a decision-maker cannot always keep waiting until the entire information-input and consequence-of-action conditions are known a priori with certainty. In most cases there is no such thing as “perfect” certainty.

If a single most important characteristic is crucial to a decision-maker in any field, it is the ability to make optimal decisions in conditions of uncertainty. Qualitative descriptive models like the SHOR paradigm may prove useful in such situations.

To quote Frederic Amiel once again: “The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides”.


VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2008
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.


vikramkarve@sify.com

vikramkarve@hotmail.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

http://www.ryze.com/go/karve