One of the ways in making a good decision is through fact-based decision making approach.
Fact-based decision-making approach is also known as evidence-based decision making, which refers to a way of thinking when making the best decisions possible using the evidence that are available.
Evidence-based decision making has been adopted into various fields such as medicine, education, housing policy, social care, law-making policy as well as in management and human resources.
When making decision in any setting such as management or business, it is important to do so based on facts and not feelings. This is so that you can get the best possible outcomes.
While evidence-based decision making has been proven to the best method in making decision, it has not been widely used by people due to several barriers.
Among the barriers in adopting the evidence-based decision making is the strong and sometimes incorrect beliefs of the person making the decision.
For this, these individuals may only rely on personal experience or their gut feelings and have the tendency to interpret and search for information consistent with one’s prior beliefs.
Other barriers in evidence-based decision making is mere exposure effect in which the person making the decision has the tendency to develop a preference for things which they have become more familiar with.
Again, this might be influence by their personal experience or based on situations that they are familiar with.
On the other hand, some individuals would only use some sources or some type of evidence when making decision.
This is when one has the tendency to rely too heavily or over-emphasize one piece of information.
Thus, this can lead to them not making the best possible decision based on only a handful of evidence without looking at the whole picture of the problem as they only pay little attention to the quality (and relevance) of the evidence presented to them.
Other barriers in implementing evidence-based decision making in management or business settings may include lack of skilled personnel, lack of time to gather evidence as well as inadequate resources and funding.
