Consensus mapping is a qualitative approach that helps teams structure ideas into organized and interrelated sets. This technique is conducted in small task teams of five to nine participants to oversee and guide the effort. The approach is appropriate for complex problems, facilitating the focus of the team's attention on interrelationship, sequence and structure. Finally, consensus mapping helps a team of participants with differing perspectives arrive at a shared image of a problem and a mutually agreeable solution through in-depth discussion about interrelationships and synergy among items (Boroush, p. 598).

Consensus mapping assumes that a task team has already generated a list of ideas, clarified the meaning of those ideas and conducted a preliminary evaluation (e.g., ratings or prioritization). According to Boroush (p. 590) there are two key steps to consensus mapping. Step One involves the team making a unified classification scheme which identifies many of the key parts of the problem. "The goal of this search should be an agreed upon structuring of the problem or solution that includes a classification scheme for the generated list of ideas.... Once this scheme has been agreed on, the individual items can be re-prioritized by the team using a numerical rating scheme. Step Two comprises creating a "strawman map" used to display the structural interrelationships and time dependencies among all of the categories and ideas generated by the team; the team should not exercise evaluative judgment by pruning ideas or designing the overall structure to a specific end (the strawman's map is a springboard, not a solution).

The benefit of consensus mapping is that the key results of the discussion are automatically documented - not so in ordinary free-flowing conversation.

Given the reality of bounded rationality and satisficing, and the impossibility of making optimal decisions in the sense implied by classical decision theory, what should decision makers do to ensure that they are making the best possible decisions within the constraints inherent in all real decision situations? In order to deal with this question, Simon introduced the concept of procedural rationality, which says that since it is impossible for decision makers ever to ensure that they have made the optimal rational decision, they should instead turn their attention to the design of methods or procedures for decision making that will be most likely to generate the best possible decisions within the constraints of human judgment and insight (Simon, 1976). Such rational procedures need to be designed in such a way that they capitalize on the strengths of human beings as problem solvers and decision makers. These strengths appear to lie not in any capacity to generate, process, and analyze huge amounts of information, but in the ability to employ insight and experience in identifying a small number of promising alternatives for further exploration and analysis (Simon, 1976).

Successive limited comparisons is an example of a method of decision making that incorporates the principle of procedural rationality. This method of decision making does not require total agreement on objectives, exhaustive analysis of all possible alternatives and outcomes, or determination of the optimal alternative. Instead, the approach views decision making as a process of successively comparing alternative courses of action until the team arrives at an alternative they can agree upon.

Instead of proposing an exhaustive analysis of many possible courses of action, the method of successive limited comparisons (as its name suggests) involves a drastically limited analytical process that ignores many alternatives and many important outcomes. It requires teams to consider only alternatives that are very similar to the current state of affairs, to focus analysis only upon differences between the current state and the alternative under consideration, and to ignore all outcomes of any alternative that are outside their own sphere of interest and concern. In this way the complexity of the decision-making process is brought within the feasible physical and mental bounds of decision makers.

Conrad Jones is president of River Rock Country Club, located in Green Springs, Arkansas. At the club annual meeting, he is presenting the concept of the need to replace the antiquated, point-to-point irrigation system on the golf course at a total cost of $250,000. The club does not have a reserve for replacement; therefore, the funding for such a capital improvement will be funded by the 100 stock-holding members. Let's join President Jones as one of the founding members of the club levels an attack against the project:

"Mr. Falsworth, your comment may be relevant, but it is out of order. Please wait until it is time for questions and comments."

"Look Conrad, I've been a member of this club since before you were born. If you think I am going to wait until you have finished your diatribe about the reasons we should vote for a new irrigation system Æ to the tune of $250,000 Æ you're out of your mind."

"Mr. Falsworth, your comments are out of order. Please wait until it is time for questions and comments."

"Conrad, you may be the president of this club, but that doesn't mean that you can railroad us into an on-going assessment. I demand that you hear me out. I demand that you hear what I have to say. I was in law practice with your father for over 30 years. If he had any idea of the way you are running this club, he'd turn over in his grave. I demand that you let me speak. I cannot sit here and listen to a bunch of bunk about why the club needs to spend $250,000. Why don't you just lower the dues and we'll get by with what we have?"

"Mr. Falsworth, you are out of order. If you cannot wait until it is time for questions and comments, I will have to ask you to leave the meeting. Please don't make me call security to escort you out."

Have you ever experienced a situation such as this at the club? Given the material presented in the text, what are some of the major advantages to structured forms of decision making? What is your evaluation of the way in which Conrad Jones, the club president, handled the situation with Gilbert Falsworth? Given the situation, what (if anything) would you have done differently?