Structured Decision Making: For Managing Work and Life

Better decisions clearly produce better human lives and endeavors, but decision making is not taught in our schools. Edward M. Collins, former Vice Director of the U. S. Defense Intelligence Agency, has extensive experience in managing and supporting government and industry decision making activities. His compelling short book Structured Decision Making for Managing Work and Life, based on that experience and much research, provides proven processes that can produce early and continuing improvement in decision making. It draws widely upon human experience and thought to address rigorous problem definition, factors influencing decisions, critical scrutiny of information and assumptions, reasoning methods, sources of error, and techniques selectively adaptable to individual life and work situations.

Edward M. Collins is the former Vice Director for Foreign Intelligence, U. S. Defense Intelligence Agency, essentially the country's senior substantive military intelligence officer. He has extensive experience in managing, supporting, and designing decision making processes and systems for government and industry. A former military combat pilot, he is an honors graduate of the University of Maryland and of MA and Ph. D. programs in International Relations at Georgetown University. He is also a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the Federal Executive Institute. He is a recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Medal. He is a former senior manager, for command and control systems, for a major industrial company. He has served as Professor of Management in a university MBA program. He is author of War, Politics, and Power (with Stefan T. Possony) and Myth, Manifesto, Meltdown, a study of Communist world strategy (1848-1991) that includes the critical decisions leading to the Communist rise and ultimate collapse.