The Decision Hedgehog: or How academics mislabel concepts to make them cute
Based on “The decision hedgehog for creative decision making” by Patrick Humphreys and Garrick Jones
So apparently there is something called the “Decision Spine.” The spine is generally divided into five sections with the idea that decisions are often made in a world of constructed fantasy without any real way of knowing if they are correct decisions. The Decision Spine gives decision makers a way to find the one right decision through logical, contextual elimination of all other possibilities. Level five and four are idea generation stages, and as the idea spirals closer to the end, as it gains more context, it moves through levels three, two and one – level one is the part that makes the spine “prick the real.”
Humphreys and Jones believe that this model is insufficient especially in an organization. They propose the “Decision Hedgehog” as a “fundamental evolution of the group decision support model” because it contains more than one spine. Hedgehogs have a lot of spines, and they are cute, so done! Let’s call it the “Decision Hedgehog.” However, it is equally important to recognize that this hedgehog is a “body-without-organs” hedgehog. I guess that makes it a plushie, or stuffed animal, or a ghost, or – you know, I don’t really know why it is important that this hedgehog has no organs; maybe the authors have something against music.
At any rate, the authors choose a more intellectual word to describe this “body-without-organs” – “rhizome.” According to Merriam-Webster, a rhizome is “a thick plant stem that grows underground and has shoots and roots growing from it.” Maybe conceptualizing this idea as the Decision Potato or the Decision Ginger Root wasn’t as appealing as a hedgehog. (Yes, potatoes are a tuber, which means they are a storage organ, but the organs were no problem when choosing “hedgehog.”) Certainly, a hedgehog is more marketable.
So the hedgehog is made of pick-a-number Decision Spines. The levels closest to the hedgehog body-without-organs, which is described as the realm of group constructed fantasy and imagination, are levels five and four. Level five uses Napplebaum’s Circular Logic of Choice, in which the choice is circled in a spiral by Option Descriptions, Instrumental Instructions, and Value Judgments as the process goes through the levels of Expressing, Framing and Fixing until a choice is made. With each revolution around the circle, the constraints around the problem are tightened until one choice remains logical and emerges to “prick the real.”
Nurturing the Hedgehog
In a group process, “the interaction context is too narrow resulting in missing opportunities and creating problems for decision implementation management.” The hedgehog must be nurtured by stories, either made up or exchange amongst individuals. Decision making should be conceptualized as a learning process. Communication and information must be continually gathered to increase the context and make the body-without-organs more robust. In some groups, the decision will have to be whether or not to expand the context of the hedgehog or to head down one of the Decision Spines. A balance needs to be struck between “pricking the real” and enriching the rhizome.
Checkout the Origins of the Earth
So apparently there is something called the “Decision Spine.” The spine is generally divided into five sections with the idea that decisions are often made in a world of constructed fantasy without any real way of knowing if they are correct decisions. The Decision Spine gives decision makers a way to find the one right decision through logical, contextual elimination of all other possibilities. Level five and four are idea generation stages, and as the idea spirals closer to the end, as it gains more context, it moves through levels three, two and one – level one is the part that makes the spine “prick the real.”
Humphreys and Jones believe that this model is insufficient especially in an organization. They propose the “Decision Hedgehog” as a “fundamental evolution of the group decision support model” because it contains more than one spine. Hedgehogs have a lot of spines, and they are cute, so done! Let’s call it the “Decision Hedgehog.” However, it is equally important to recognize that this hedgehog is a “body-without-organs” hedgehog. I guess that makes it a plushie, or stuffed animal, or a ghost, or – you know, I don’t really know why it is important that this hedgehog has no organs; maybe the authors have something against music.
At any rate, the authors choose a more intellectual word to describe this “body-without-organs” – “rhizome.” According to Merriam-Webster, a rhizome is “a thick plant stem that grows underground and has shoots and roots growing from it.” Maybe conceptualizing this idea as the Decision Potato or the Decision Ginger Root wasn’t as appealing as a hedgehog. (Yes, potatoes are a tuber, which means they are a storage organ, but the organs were no problem when choosing “hedgehog.”) Certainly, a hedgehog is more marketable.
So the hedgehog is made of pick-a-number Decision Spines. The levels closest to the hedgehog body-without-organs, which is described as the realm of group constructed fantasy and imagination, are levels five and four. Level five uses Napplebaum’s Circular Logic of Choice, in which the choice is circled in a spiral by Option Descriptions, Instrumental Instructions, and Value Judgments as the process goes through the levels of Expressing, Framing and Fixing until a choice is made. With each revolution around the circle, the constraints around the problem are tightened until one choice remains logical and emerges to “prick the real.”
Nurturing the Hedgehog
In a group process, “the interaction context is too narrow resulting in missing opportunities and creating problems for decision implementation management.” The hedgehog must be nurtured by stories, either made up or exchange amongst individuals. Decision making should be conceptualized as a learning process. Communication and information must be continually gathered to increase the context and make the body-without-organs more robust. In some groups, the decision will have to be whether or not to expand the context of the hedgehog or to head down one of the Decision Spines. A balance needs to be struck between “pricking the real” and enriching the rhizome.
Checkout the Origins of the Earth