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Garbage-Can: A Decision
Making Process
Garbage-can is a
decision making process which changes the actual organizational problem.
It is said that four basic streams which influence the decision are:
problems, solutions, participants and choice opportunities. In a
Garbage-Can situation how these streams will be mixed it is unpredictable.
It is a situation where problems, solutions, and participants move from
one choice to another, frequently. This situation leads to three kinds of
decision making styles:
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Decision By
Oversight: Decisions are made for the sake of making decision without
considering if they are addressing the real problem or not.
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Decision By Flight:
Decision is not made till the time problem leaves the existing and
attached choice.
-
Decision By
Resolution: The problems are resolved on ad-hoc basis.
According to the model
participants deals with the same problem again and again, therefore,
efficiency level is low. Below are given three aspects of efficiency:
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Problem Activity which
means how much time is spent to the unresolved problems;
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Problem Latency which
refers to the amount of time spend to the problem without being linked
to the choice(s); and
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Decision Time which
means the "persistence to choices".
A good process
would keep both problem activity and problem latency low through rapid
problem solution, however, it is not observed in the garbage-can
process.
The main theme of the
garbage-can is based on that the decision is not necessarily touching the
real problem. Decisions makers are likely to shift from one problem to
another more frequently. As far as efficiency of the organization is
concerned it is low in such cases.
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