CBS Decision Making & Problem Solving 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A strategist is evaluating a major acquisition using a weighted scoring model. What is the primary advantage of this approach over simple ranking?
- It eliminates the need for qualitative judgment
- It accounts for the relative importance of different evaluation criteria (Correct answer)
- It guarantees the highest-ROI option is selected
- It reduces the number of alternatives to be considered
Correct answer: It accounts for the relative importance of different evaluation criteria
Weighted scoring models assign importance weights to criteria, ensuring that more critical factors have proportionally greater influence on the final score.
Question 2: Which problem-solving framework divides a challenge into mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive (MECE) components before analyzing each?
- SWOT analysis
- Issue tree / logic tree (Correct answer)
- Kepner-Tregoe method
- Force field analysis
Correct answer: Issue tree / logic tree
Issue trees (logic trees) structure problems into MECE branches, ensuring no overlap or gaps in analysis—a standard McKinsey-style consulting approach.
Question 3: A leadership team exhibits 'groupthink' during a strategic planning session. Which intervention is most effective at countering this dynamic?
- Increasing meeting frequency to build consensus faster
- Assigning a devil's advocate to challenge group conclusions (Correct answer)
- Limiting discussion to senior leaders only
- Voting anonymously on the final strategy
Correct answer: Assigning a devil's advocate to challenge group conclusions
Assigning a devil's advocate introduces structured dissent, forcing the group to rigorously defend assumptions and surface overlooked risks.
Question 4: In the Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision model, which factor primarily determines how much employee participation a manager should invite?
- The financial magnitude of the decision
- The quality requirement and team's information and commitment needs (Correct answer)
- The manager's personal leadership style
- The time available before the deadline
Correct answer: The quality requirement and team's information and commitment needs
The Vroom-Yetton-Jago model uses diagnostic questions about decision quality, information availability, and acceptance needs to prescribe the appropriate level of participation.
Question 5: A strategist applies 'pre-mortem' analysis before launching a new product. What does this technique involve?
- Reviewing past product failures for lessons learned
- Imagining the product has already failed and identifying causes (Correct answer)
- Stress-testing the financial model under worst-case assumptions
- Surveying customers about potential product weaknesses
Correct answer: Imagining the product has already failed and identifying causes
A pre-mortem projects forward to a hypothetical failure, then works backward to identify what could have caused it—surfacing risks proactively.
Question 6: When using the Kepner-Tregoe (KT) problem analysis method, what is the central question the analyst seeks to answer?
- What is the best solution given our constraints?
- What caused the deviation from expected performance? (Correct answer)
- Which stakeholders are affected by the problem?
- What is the cost of doing nothing?
Correct answer: What caused the deviation from expected performance?
KT problem analysis focuses on identifying the precise cause of a deviation by systematically comparing what IS occurring versus what SHOULD be occurring.
Question 7: A company faces a decision with high uncertainty and no historical data. Which decision-making approach is most appropriate?
- Expected value maximization
- Scenario planning with robust strategy selection (Correct answer)
- Linear programming optimization
- Benchmarking against industry leaders
Correct answer: Scenario planning with robust strategy selection
Scenario planning develops multiple plausible futures and identifies strategies that perform well across all scenarios, providing robustness under deep uncertainty.
CBS Decision Making & Problem Solving 3
A strategist is evaluating a major acquisition using a weighted scoring model.
What is the primary advantage of this approach over simple ranking?