Gary Klein on Decision Making
Gary Klein, a research psychologist, published his most recent book, Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making, in October of last year. The book continues in the vein he has been exploring for many years, namely reporting on what his research reveals concerning the way in which experts make decisions.The MIT Press's summary of Klein's book explains that he offers
... realistic ideas about how to make decisions in real-life settings. He provides many examples — ranging from airline pilots and weather forecasters to sports announcers and Captain Jack Aubrey in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander novels — to make his point. All these decision makers saw things that others didn't. They used their expertise to pick up cues and to discern patterns and trends. We can make better decisions, Klein tells us, if we are prepared for complexity and ambiguity and if we will stop expecting the data to tell us everything.The first chapter of the book is available online. You can preview the book — on a limited basis — at Google Books.
There is an informative review at Diane Coyle's blog, and you can read an excellent overview of Klein's work, as of ten years ago, in an article Fast Company published in August 2000. Five years later, Klein was interviewed by NASA's ASK Magazine, producing another clear, compact account of his thinking on decision-making.
Labels: Cognition, Decision-making, Expertise, Simulation
posted by Karen Nelson @ 11:49 PM
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