Author: Sean Marimpietri

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When we discussed the NASA Columbia Shuttle mission, it seemed clear that financial constraints and budgetary limitations at NASA were interwoven into the circumstances that led to the disaster. But, the tensions around NASA funding are ongoing. The final quote from the article is telling, “You just can’t finalize your plans until you have the overall funding…” Decision making in complex organizations like NASA is difficult enough without financial consierations. However, when cost becomes a real part of the equation of things where lives are on the line, the challenge is mangnified even more.

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Kevin O’Connor, the founder of DoubleClick, has launched another website: findthebest.com. The site addresses the challenge users face when researching various products or services of the same type to inform decision making on which to buy. The service covers a variety of topics and pulls data from various resources to provide the user with his or her options. In the third module of the course, we have discussed the importance of structuring decision making processes. Here, the core value of this service is in having structured and automated the annoying and time-consuming task of going from site to site to compare offers. The decisions at issue here are more trivial than those discussed in class, but this seems to be an example of the value of structuring decision making nonetheless.