MO Decision Making & Problem Solving 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: During a brainstorming session, a team member immediately criticizes every idea proposed. This behavior violates which principle of effective brainstorming?
- Quantity over quality
- Deferred judgment (Correct answer)
- Wild ideas welcome
- Build on others' ideas
Correct answer: Deferred judgment
Deferred judgment means withholding criticism during idea generation so participants feel safe contributing freely without fear of immediate rejection.
Question 2: A marketing officer uses a decision matrix to select a new agency. What does a decision matrix primarily help with?
- Generating new decision options
- Evaluating multiple options against weighted criteria (Correct answer)
- Delegating decisions to team members
- Documenting decisions after they are made
Correct answer: Evaluating multiple options against weighted criteria
A decision matrix scores and ranks multiple options against weighted criteria to provide an objective basis for selection.
Question 3: When analyzing a drop in brand awareness metrics, which type of thinking helps see how marketing, sales, and customer service interactions all contribute to the problem?
- Linear thinking
- Lateral thinking
- Systems thinking (Correct answer)
- Critical thinking
Correct answer: Systems thinking
Systems thinking examines how different parts of an organization interconnect and collectively influence outcomes like brand awareness.
Question 4: A marketing officer faces a recurring problem that has been 'solved' multiple times but keeps returning. What does this indicate?
- The problem is unsolvable
- Only symptoms were addressed, not the root cause (Correct answer)
- The team lacks the budget to fix it permanently
- The problem is caused by external market forces
Correct answer: Only symptoms were addressed, not the root cause
Recurring problems signal that previous solutions addressed surface-level symptoms rather than the underlying root cause.
Question 5: Which of the following best describes 'satisficing' in marketing decision making?
- Finding the mathematically optimal solution
- Choosing the first option that meets minimum acceptable criteria (Correct answer)
- Delaying a decision until all information is available
- Delegating the decision to an external consultant
Correct answer: Choosing the first option that meets minimum acceptable criteria
Satisficing, coined by Herbert Simon, means selecting the first solution that satisfies sufficient criteria rather than optimizing exhaustively.
Question 6: A brand manager must decide whether to enter a new market segment. Using the Pareto Principle, which data should be prioritized?
- All available market research data equally
- The 20% of data factors driving 80% of projected revenue impact (Correct answer)
- Only qualitative customer feedback
- Competitor pricing data exclusively
Correct answer: The 20% of data factors driving 80% of projected revenue impact
The Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) suggests focusing on the vital few factors—roughly 20%—that drive the majority of outcomes.
Question 7: In group decision making, 'groupthink' is most likely to occur when:
- Team members come from diverse backgrounds
- There is strong pressure to conform and a dominant leader discourages dissent (Correct answer)
- The team uses structured debate techniques
- Anonymous voting is used for all decisions
Correct answer: There is strong pressure to conform and a dominant leader discourages dissent
Groupthink emerges when cohesion and conformity pressures suppress dissenting views, causing the group to make poor collective decisions.
MO Decision Making & Problem Solving 3
During a brainstorming session, a team member immediately criticizes every idea proposed.
This behavior violates which principle of effective brainstorming?