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The rational planning model is the process of realizing a problem, establishing and evaluating planning criteria, create alternatives, implementing alternatives, and monitoring progress of the alternatives. It is used in designing neighborhoods, cities, and regions. The rational planning model is central in the development of modern urban planning and transportation planning. The very similar rational decision-making model, as it is called in organizational behavior is a process for making logically sound decisions. This multi-step model and aims to be logical and follow the orderly path from problem identification through solution.

Contents

• 1 Method
  • 1.1 Verify, Define, and Detail the problem
  • 1.2 Generate all possible solutions
  • 1.3 Generate objective assessment criteria
  • 1.4 Choose the best solution which we have already generated
  • 1.5 Implementing the preferred alternative
  • 1.6 Monitoring and evaluating outcomes and results
  • 1.7 Feedback
• 2 Requirements and limitations
• 3 The Bounded Rational Decision Making Model: a realistic approach
• 4 Assumptions of the model
• 5 Three concepts of rational planning
  • 5.1 Market rationality
  • 5.2 Social rationality
  • 5.3 A third concept
• 6 Methodology
• 7 Current status
• 8 Sources
• 9 See also
• 10 References

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Method

Rational decision-making or planning follows a series of steps detailed below:

Verify, Define, and Detail the problem

Verifying, defining & detailing the problem (problem definition, goal definition, information gathering). This step includes recognizing the problem, defining an initial solution, and starting primary analysis. Examples of this are creative devising, creative ideas, inspirations, breakthroughs, and brainstorms. The very first step which is normally overlooked by the top level management is defining the exact problem. Though we think that the problem identification is obvious, many times it is not. The rational decision making model is a group-based decision making process. If the problem is not identified properly then we may face a problem as each and every member of the group might have a different definition of the problem. Hence, it is very important that the definition of the problem is the same among all group members. Only then is it possible for the group members to find alternate sources or problem solving in an effective manner.

Generate all possible solutions

This step encloses two to three final solutions to the problem and preliminary implementation to the site. In planning, examples of this are Planned Units of Development and downtown revitalizations.

This activity is best done in groups, as different people may contribute different ideas or alternative solutions to the problem. If you are not able to generate alternative solutions, there is a chance that you might not arrive at an optimal or a rational decision. For exploring the alternatives it is necessary to gather information. Technology may help with gathering this information.

Generate objective assessment criteria

Evaluative criteria are measurements to determine success and failure of alternatives. This step contains secondary and final analysis along with secondary solutions to the problem. Examples of this are site suitability and site sensitivity analysis. After going thoroughly through the process of defining the problem, exploring for all the possible alternatives for that problem and gathering information this step says evaluate the information and the possible options to anticipate the consequences of each and every possible alternative that is thought of. At this point of time we have to also think over for optional criteria on which we will measure the success or failure of our decision taken.

Choose the best solution which we have already generated

This step comprises a final solution and secondary implementation to the site. At this point the process has developed into different strategies of how to apply the solutions to the site. Based on the criteria of assessment and the analysis done in previous steps, choose the best solution which we have generated. Once we go through the above steps thoroughly, implementing the fourth step is easy job. These four steps form the core of the Rational Decision Making Model.

Implementing the preferred alternative

This step includes final implementation to the site and preliminary monitoring of the outcome and results of the site. This step is the building/renovations part of the process.

Monitoring and evaluating outcomes and results

This step contains the secondary and final monitoring of the outcomes and results of the site. This step takes place over a long period of time.

Feedback

Modify the decisions and actions taken based on the evaluation.

Requirements and limitations

However, there are a lot of assumptions, requirements without which the rational decision model is a failure. Therefore, they all have to be considered. The model assumes that we have or should or can obtain adequate information, both in terms of quality, quantity and accuracy. This applies to the situation as well as the alternative technical situations. It further assumes that you have or should or can obtain substantive knowledge of the cause and effect relationships relevant to the evaluation of the alternatives. In other words, it assumes that you have a thorough knowledge of all the alternatives and the consequences of the alternatives chosen. It further assumes that you can rank the alternatives and choose the best of it. The following are the limitations for the Rational Decision Making Model:

• It requires a great deal of time.
• It requires great deal of information
• It assumes rational, measurable criteria are available and agreed upon.
• It assumes accurate, stable and complete knowledge of all the alternatives, preferences, goals and consequences.
• It assumes a rational, reasonable, non – political world.

The Bounded Rational Decision Making Model: a realistic approach

The Rational Decision Making Model, amongst its many assumptions assumes that there is a single, best solution that will maximize the desired outcomes.

Now, the bounded rationality model says that the problems and the decisions are to be reduced to such a level that they will be understood. In other words, the model suggests that we should interpret information and extract essential features and then within these boundaries we take a rational decision.

The model turns towards compromising on the decision making process though it is a structured decision making model. The decision maker takes the decision or is assumed to choose a solution though not a perfect solution but “good enough” solution based on the limited capacity of the group leader to handle the complexity of the situation, ambiguity and information. The steps involved in the decision making are alike to the rational decision making process the model assumes that the perfect knowledge about all the alternatives are not possible for a human being to know. Hence, based on the limited knowledge he takes a good enough knowledge though not a perfect decision.

To cut the long story short we can say that the decision that is taken is rational but is taken in a bounded area and the choice of alternatives is though not perfect is nearer to the perfect decision. In rational process the assumption is that the exact problem, all the alternatives, should be thoroughly known to the decision maker. However, the realistic approach of human limitation is overlooked in rational decision making, but the same approach is considered mainly in the bounded rational decision making process.

Hence, it is also called as a Realistic Approach for Rational Decision Making Process.yeah

Assumptions of the model

The rational decision making model contains a number of assumptions.

• Problem clarity: The problem is clear and unambiguous.The decision maker is assumed to have complete information regarding situation.
• Known options: It is assumed the decision maker can identify all the relevant criteria and can list all the viable alternatives. Furthermore, the decision maker is aware of all possible consequences of each alternative.
• Clear preferences: Rationality assumes that the criteria and alternatives can be ranked and weighted to reflect their importance.
• Constant preferences: It’s assumed that the specific decision criteria are constant and that the weights assigned to them are stable over time.
• No time or cost constraints: The rational decision maker can obtain full information about criteria and alternatives because it’s assumed that there are no time or cost constraints.
• Maximum payoff:The rational decision maker will choose the alternative that yields the highest perceived value.

Three concepts of rational planning

John Friedmann describes the three concepts of rationality that have informed planning as:

Market rationality

Market rationality is described as being grounded in metaphysics of possessive individualism and which predicates the individual as existing prior to society. Society then becomes the mechanism that enables individuals to pursue their private interests. This prior-to status gives market rationally a quasi-natural character, and ranks it as being beyond human intention, thereby making its assumptions unavoidably compelling. From this perspective, reason is the means toward the maximization of private satisfactions.

Social rationality

Social rationality is the opposite assumption, that the social group grants the individual their identity through membership in the group. Reason becomes the tool of the collective interest and functions as the avenue toward communal satisfactions.

A third concept

The third concept is a hybrid of the preceding two and seeks some middle ground between them. Friedmann identifies it with the realization on the part of capital that some state sponsored restraint was necessary to curtail the excesses of market rationality and provide for the public good. Friedmann calls this type of rationality social or modern planning. It is explicitly concerned with social outcomes.

Methodology

The three types of rationality that Friedman describes as structuring modern rational planning model are united on their reliance upon the methodology of empirical scientific investigation.

The distinctions that Friedmann makes allows the rational planning model to be used as a tool of social speech that creates it own processes according to the uses to which it is put. The rational planning model acts as a mediator between market and social rationality, and exists between different criteria of what is fundamentally rational.

The rational planning model has its origins in the scientific and philosophic revolutions of the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the social revolutions of the Enlightenment which gave public form to urban planning fundamentals and rational worldviews. The profession of modern urban planning is not based on the rational planning model; it identifies what planners have come to identify as rational and have come to an understanding of how the rational planning model affects an urban planner’s decisions. The modern style of urban planning is essentially the rational planning model in its ideological framework.

The rational planning model has also been called the classical rational problem solving process, the rational comprehensive method, the “policy analysis strand of conservative forms of societal guidance planning”, and “the ruling or normal paradigm that governs the practice of modern planning.” Although it has a myriad of names, it has a singular approach to problem solving. This approach is the systematic evaluation of alternative means toward a preferred goal. Once a goal has been selected, the prevailing assumption is that there are only certain correct ways of achieving it.

Current status

While the rational planning model was innovative at its conception, the concepts are controversial and questionable processes today. The rational planning model has fallen out of mass use as of the last decade.

Sources

http://ewp.uoregon.edu/pdfs/wp2.pdf

See also

References

1. ^ Robbins, Stephen P., and Timothy A. Judge. Organization Behavior. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. 156-158.

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