Question

What are the benefits of participatory decision making and under what conditions is it most likely to succeed? What is your experience with participatory decision making in an organization?

Answer 1

Participatory decision making is the process of making a decision while involving all the participants of a group. Participatory decision making provides an opportunity for all the participants to contribute their opinions and hence help in the process of decision making. Participatory decision making is helpful is getting a variety of opinions and solutions. Since all the participants are involved, it gives a sense of group decision making and everyone has a stake in it. It results in better decision making since there are checks and balances involved in different opinions. It also provides participants with a sense of ownership of decisions and they will be involved in making the decision a success.

Participatory decision making is most likely to succeed when all of the participants get involved in the decision-making process. Also, everyone should be given time to give their opinions and should not be ridiculed for their opinions.

My experience with participatory decision making has generally been positive. It's good to have an avenue to speak your opinions and feels good when people consider your opinion and take it seriously.