Information plays a vital role in decision-making. Even to take very simple decisions, we need information. To understand the role played by information in decision-making, we have to understand how decisions are taken. Decision-making is basically a process that includes the following stages:
Information is thus, very important to take decisions. Imagine a simple decision like the one a driver (say) makes when he puts on the brakes to stop a speeding vehicle when he sees a child crossing the road (in middle of the road). The driver decides on braking based on a lot of information processing that happens in his brain. At every stage of the decision-making he uses information that he captures visually. All decisions are like this.
First we get information about a problem, format it into a structure and then factor in the information about the context in which the problem has occurred. Like in the above case instead of the child being at the middle of the road and crossing it, the driver would have seen the child about to cross over with a few steps only he would probably not have braked to stop but would have slowed down, as he would have calculated that by the time the vehicle reaches the crossing stage, the child would already have passed. So if the problem was structured as 'how to not hit the child crossing the road?', and if the child was at the middle of the road, the driver would have braked but had the child been at (say) at ninety per cent completion level of crossing the road, the driver would have only slowed down and not braked to stop. Therefore, we see that the context has a major role in the decision-making and information is required both about the problem and about the context in which the problem occurred. The next stage for the decision maker would be to generate alternatives. In the driver's case such possible alternatives would be
| Stages of Decision-making | Role of Information |
| Identification and structuring of problem/opportunity | One needs information to identify a problem and put it in a structured manner. Without information about a problem or opportunity, the decision-making process does not even start. |
Putting the problem/
opportunity in context
| Without information about the context in which the problem has occurred, one cannot take any decision on it. In a way, the information about the context defines the problem. |
| Generation of alternatives | Information is a key ingredient in the generation of alternatives for decision-making. One has to have information about possible solutions to generate alternatives. |
| Choice of best alternative | Based on the information about the suitability of the alternatives, a choice is made to select the best alternative. |
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