BUSI 758Z

Decision Modeling
Credits
2

Many different skills are required in arriving at informed managerial decisions. Among these are analytical and quantitative skills. Decision Modeling surveys tools necessary to attack complex managerial decision problems in a systematic and structured manner. The course introduces business optimization modeling techniques to aid in complex decision making environments, decision trees to structure strategic decision making problems in an uncertain environment, and Monte-Carlo simulation to help analyze and assess the risk associated with decisions in an uncertain environment. All of these techniques are demonstrated using spreadsheets. 

 

Course Objectives

  • To use structured analytical ways of dealing with complex managerial decision problems

  • To develop business analytics skills that provide powerful and qualitative insights about a large spectrum of managerial problems

  • To tackle business decision making problems using analytical tools such as: optimization, decision trees, and simulation

  • To learn more powerful ways of using spreadsheet models which can be a ubiquitous tool in one’s managerial career

  • To understand the trade-offs involved in decision making and the role of uncertainty and risk in the decision-making process

  • To build and solve optimization models using Solver

  • To build and solve decision tree problems using PrecisionTree

  • To build and run Monte Carlo simulation using @RISK