Author: Tim Castle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781913036287
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Making good decisions quickly is what marks out truly great leaders from the rest of us. Decision-making is one of the most sought-after skills today, but most of us have never been taught, but one most of us have never been taught. Aged 19, I went off-piste snowboarding, way before I had the skills or experience to do so, and very quickly found myself hurtling towards the edge of a cliff face on sheet ice. Within minutes, I was literally hanging onto a boulder for dear life, with my legs dangling over the precipice. Every single decision I made over the next few hours was life or death. There were no easy choices. Each right decision could be undone by a wrong one, and I was very aware of how close I was to death the whole time: the cold, the wind, the fading light, the fact no one knew where I was, the fact I had no food or water on me. That day, my brain worked overtime to keep me alive. What I learned has actually been a enabled me to approach decisions in all areas of my life with ease In addition to sharing my story with you, I will also explore 6 of the best decision-making models, as well as teach you how to maintain the mindset of a master decision-maker. After reading this book, you'll find making good decisions quick and easy and will no longer waste time stressing over them or avoid stepping up to make them.
The Art of Decision Making
Author: Tim Castle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781913036287
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Making good decisions quickly is what marks out truly great leaders from the rest of us. Decision-making is one of the most sought-after skills today, but most of us have never been taught, but one most of us have never been taught. Aged 19, I went off-piste snowboarding, way before I had the skills or experience to do so, and very quickly found myself hurtling towards the edge of a cliff face on sheet ice. Within minutes, I was literally hanging onto a boulder for dear life, with my legs dangling over the precipice. Every single decision I made over the next few hours was life or death. There were no easy choices. Each right decision could be undone by a wrong one, and I was very aware of how close I was to death the whole time: the cold, the wind, the fading light, the fact no one knew where I was, the fact I had no food or water on me. That day, my brain worked overtime to keep me alive. What I learned has actually been a enabled me to approach decisions in all areas of my life with ease In addition to sharing my story with you, I will also explore 6 of the best decision-making models, as well as teach you how to maintain the mindset of a master decision-maker. After reading this book, you'll find making good decisions quick and easy and will no longer waste time stressing over them or avoid stepping up to make them.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781913036287
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Making good decisions quickly is what marks out truly great leaders from the rest of us. Decision-making is one of the most sought-after skills today, but most of us have never been taught, but one most of us have never been taught. Aged 19, I went off-piste snowboarding, way before I had the skills or experience to do so, and very quickly found myself hurtling towards the edge of a cliff face on sheet ice. Within minutes, I was literally hanging onto a boulder for dear life, with my legs dangling over the precipice. Every single decision I made over the next few hours was life or death. There were no easy choices. Each right decision could be undone by a wrong one, and I was very aware of how close I was to death the whole time: the cold, the wind, the fading light, the fact no one knew where I was, the fact I had no food or water on me. That day, my brain worked overtime to keep me alive. What I learned has actually been a enabled me to approach decisions in all areas of my life with ease In addition to sharing my story with you, I will also explore 6 of the best decision-making models, as well as teach you how to maintain the mindset of a master decision-maker. After reading this book, you'll find making good decisions quick and easy and will no longer waste time stressing over them or avoid stepping up to make them.
The Art of Decision Making
Author: Madison Taylor
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781540305527
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 106
Book Description
The art of decision making is a very important art to learn. Unfortunately, you were probably not taught great decision-making skills in school. You do not know what to do in the face of a decision, be it large or small. Your indecisiveness makes life more difficult and impairs your ability as a leader. You struggle with decisions, and feel a great deal of frustration, anxiety, and angst as a result. That is OK. You can let go of your indecisiveness now. This book is your ultimate guide to the art of decision making. You will learn all of the skills and tools that you require to perform this art very satisfactorily. Using the advice in this book, you can begin to make good decisions without so much angst and deliberation. Learn how to make major life decisions that benefit you and make you happy. Learn how to make snappy decisions under the constraints of time. Learn how to make decisions as a leader or when you are under pressure. Finally, learn how to stay resolute in your decisions so that you do not gain the reputation of being indecisive. By the time you finish this guide, you will have all the skills that you need to make decisions with a minimum of struggle and heartache. You will change your relationship with decision making to become healthier. Your life will benefit as you begin to take charge and make healthy decisions more easily.
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781540305527
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 106
Book Description
The art of decision making is a very important art to learn. Unfortunately, you were probably not taught great decision-making skills in school. You do not know what to do in the face of a decision, be it large or small. Your indecisiveness makes life more difficult and impairs your ability as a leader. You struggle with decisions, and feel a great deal of frustration, anxiety, and angst as a result. That is OK. You can let go of your indecisiveness now. This book is your ultimate guide to the art of decision making. You will learn all of the skills and tools that you require to perform this art very satisfactorily. Using the advice in this book, you can begin to make good decisions without so much angst and deliberation. Learn how to make major life decisions that benefit you and make you happy. Learn how to make snappy decisions under the constraints of time. Learn how to make decisions as a leader or when you are under pressure. Finally, learn how to stay resolute in your decisions so that you do not gain the reputation of being indecisive. By the time you finish this guide, you will have all the skills that you need to make decisions with a minimum of struggle and heartache. You will change your relationship with decision making to become healthier. Your life will benefit as you begin to take charge and make healthy decisions more easily.
Managerial Decision Making Leadership
Author: Caroline Wang
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470826142
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
The modern manager faces a bewildering range of challenges every single day. Their ability to make critical decisions, often under pressure, can directly determine the future success of the company and their career. It is therefore surprising that so few managers take the time to learn the art of decision making. In this groundbreaking book from Caroline Wang, readers will learn that quality decision making is a competence that can be acquired according to a simple framework. The framework is practical and easy-to-remember, consisting of two acronyms: GPA and IPO. GPA for decision content quality (Goal, Priority, Alternatives); and IPO for decision process quality (Information, People, Objective reasoning). The book places emphasis on leading a team to make decisions, even though the framework can be used for personal and individual decisions. By using this common decision-making framework, managers and leaders will gain credibility and team support for the decision, will confidently articulate, promote, and defend the decision, and will have made the necessary preparations for successful implementation when the decision-making process is complete. This proven framework from one of Asia's most dynamic leadership experts will improve the quality of your decisions and change the way you do business.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470826142
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
The modern manager faces a bewildering range of challenges every single day. Their ability to make critical decisions, often under pressure, can directly determine the future success of the company and their career. It is therefore surprising that so few managers take the time to learn the art of decision making. In this groundbreaking book from Caroline Wang, readers will learn that quality decision making is a competence that can be acquired according to a simple framework. The framework is practical and easy-to-remember, consisting of two acronyms: GPA and IPO. GPA for decision content quality (Goal, Priority, Alternatives); and IPO for decision process quality (Information, People, Objective reasoning). The book places emphasis on leading a team to make decisions, even though the framework can be used for personal and individual decisions. By using this common decision-making framework, managers and leaders will gain credibility and team support for the decision, will confidently articulate, promote, and defend the decision, and will have made the necessary preparations for successful implementation when the decision-making process is complete. This proven framework from one of Asia's most dynamic leadership experts will improve the quality of your decisions and change the way you do business.
Arts Under Pressure
Author: Joost Smiers
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN: 9781842772638
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
This book provides a clear reading, with numerous examples, of the impact of globalization on local arts and culture.
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN: 9781842772638
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
This book provides a clear reading, with numerous examples, of the impact of globalization on local arts and culture.
Performing Under Pressure
Author: Hendrie Weisinger
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0804136726
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Nobody performs better under pressure. Regardless of the task, pressure ruthlessly diminishes our judgment, decision-making, attention, dexterity, and performance in every professional and personal arena. In Performing Under Pressure, Drs. Hendrie Weisinger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry introduce us to the concept of pressure management, offering empirically tested short term and long term solutions to help us overcome the debilitating effects of pressure. Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one "rises to the occasion" under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse, and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance. Performing Under Pressure draws on research from over 12,000 people, and features the latest research from neuroscience and from the frontline experiences of Fortune 500 employees and managers, Navy SEALS, Olympic and other elite athletes, and others. It offers 22 specific strategies each of us can use to reduce pressure in our personal and professional lives and allow us to better excel in whatever we do. Whether you’re a corporate manager, a basketball player, or a student preparing for the SAT, Performing Under Pressure will help you to do your best when it matters most.
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0804136726
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Nobody performs better under pressure. Regardless of the task, pressure ruthlessly diminishes our judgment, decision-making, attention, dexterity, and performance in every professional and personal arena. In Performing Under Pressure, Drs. Hendrie Weisinger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry introduce us to the concept of pressure management, offering empirically tested short term and long term solutions to help us overcome the debilitating effects of pressure. Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one "rises to the occasion" under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse, and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance. Performing Under Pressure draws on research from over 12,000 people, and features the latest research from neuroscience and from the frontline experiences of Fortune 500 employees and managers, Navy SEALS, Olympic and other elite athletes, and others. It offers 22 specific strategies each of us can use to reduce pressure in our personal and professional lives and allow us to better excel in whatever we do. Whether you’re a corporate manager, a basketball player, or a student preparing for the SAT, Performing Under Pressure will help you to do your best when it matters most.
Effective Decision-Making
Author: Edoardo Binda Zane
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781530800094
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 140
Book Description
The aim of this book is to quickly empower you to make better decisions by giving you step-by-step explanations of the best techniques. We always make decisions under uncertainty and pressure, especially in business. We need faster and better decisions to cope, but we don''t have the time to learn how to make them well. That is where I come in. I wrote this book to allow you to make better decisions without spending weeks studying theory and practice. THE INTRODUCTION gives you a snapshot of two decision-making biases, of the worst mistake you can do when making decision, and a lesson taken straight from philosophy. - Decision Biases (why your brain isn''t always your friend in decisions) - The Worst Mistake in Decision-Making - A Lesson From Another Time THE FIRST CHAPTER looks at frameworks of reference, meaning how you can apply decision-making to achieve your goals, for example how and why some decisions are able to automatically give you a competitive advantage. - The OODA Loop - The Recognition-Primed Decision Model - GROW or the John Whitmore Model - The PDSA Cycle CHAPTERS 2 TO 5 look at separate phases of decision-making: understanding your context, understanding the problem, generating solutions and selecting one option out of many. 2 - CONTEXT Contexts can be very different - and there is no one size fits all approach, which is why this book provides you with five. - SWOT and PEST - TELOS - Porter''s Five Forces - Causal Loops Diagrams 3 - PROBLEM ASSESSMENT Before making decisions, then, you need to work on finding out exactly what you are trying to solve. This chapter gives you 5 tools to do so: - Root Cause Analysis: Ishikawa''s Diagramand the 5 Whys Technique - Pareto Analysis - Kipling Method (5W1H) - CATWOE 4 - GENERATING IDEAS In "pure" decision-making, little attention is given to this phase, as it belongs to a different field: creativity. This book includes two tools: - Zwicky''s Box - SCAMPER 5 - WEIGHING ALTERNATIVES This book gives you six tools for this, each one with its specificities: - Weights and Factors: the Grid Analysis and the KT Matrix - The Paired Comparison Analysis - The Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix - The Analytic Hierarchy Process - The Eisenhower Matrix CHAPTER 6 AND 7 look at group decisions, meaning whether it''s a good idea to make decisions in a group and, if it is, how that group should make decisions. 6 - DO YOU NEED YOUR TEAM? You can either involve your team in decisions or exclude them. Often, managers are torn between these two options - you have three tools to help you though: - The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Model - The Hoy-Tarter Model - The Hersey-Blanchard Model 7 - GROUP TECHNIQUES To be used when making decisions in a group is necessary. - The Nominal Group Technique - The Delphi Method - Hartnett''s Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making Model - The Stepladder Technique - DeBono''s Six Thinking Hats - The Charette Procedure - RAPID CHAPTERS 8 AND 9 look at decisions in corporate strategy and analyse a decision''s consequence 8 - CORPORATE STRATEGY These decision tools have all been developed for corporations, but they still hold value for smaller businesses. - The BCG Matrix - The Advantage Matrix - The GE Matrix - Blind Spot Analysis 9 - CONSEQUENCES In other words: "how can I make sure that the decision I made is the best one and will work in my specific situation?" Unfortunately nobody can answer this. Any decision method can only skew the odds of having made the right decision in your favour. That said, there are a few techniques you can apply. - Impact Assessment - Plus-Minus-Interesting - Decision Trees - Cost-Benefit Analysis - Futures Wheel
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781530800094
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 140
Book Description
The aim of this book is to quickly empower you to make better decisions by giving you step-by-step explanations of the best techniques. We always make decisions under uncertainty and pressure, especially in business. We need faster and better decisions to cope, but we don''t have the time to learn how to make them well. That is where I come in. I wrote this book to allow you to make better decisions without spending weeks studying theory and practice. THE INTRODUCTION gives you a snapshot of two decision-making biases, of the worst mistake you can do when making decision, and a lesson taken straight from philosophy. - Decision Biases (why your brain isn''t always your friend in decisions) - The Worst Mistake in Decision-Making - A Lesson From Another Time THE FIRST CHAPTER looks at frameworks of reference, meaning how you can apply decision-making to achieve your goals, for example how and why some decisions are able to automatically give you a competitive advantage. - The OODA Loop - The Recognition-Primed Decision Model - GROW or the John Whitmore Model - The PDSA Cycle CHAPTERS 2 TO 5 look at separate phases of decision-making: understanding your context, understanding the problem, generating solutions and selecting one option out of many. 2 - CONTEXT Contexts can be very different - and there is no one size fits all approach, which is why this book provides you with five. - SWOT and PEST - TELOS - Porter''s Five Forces - Causal Loops Diagrams 3 - PROBLEM ASSESSMENT Before making decisions, then, you need to work on finding out exactly what you are trying to solve. This chapter gives you 5 tools to do so: - Root Cause Analysis: Ishikawa''s Diagramand the 5 Whys Technique - Pareto Analysis - Kipling Method (5W1H) - CATWOE 4 - GENERATING IDEAS In "pure" decision-making, little attention is given to this phase, as it belongs to a different field: creativity. This book includes two tools: - Zwicky''s Box - SCAMPER 5 - WEIGHING ALTERNATIVES This book gives you six tools for this, each one with its specificities: - Weights and Factors: the Grid Analysis and the KT Matrix - The Paired Comparison Analysis - The Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix - The Analytic Hierarchy Process - The Eisenhower Matrix CHAPTER 6 AND 7 look at group decisions, meaning whether it''s a good idea to make decisions in a group and, if it is, how that group should make decisions. 6 - DO YOU NEED YOUR TEAM? You can either involve your team in decisions or exclude them. Often, managers are torn between these two options - you have three tools to help you though: - The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Model - The Hoy-Tarter Model - The Hersey-Blanchard Model 7 - GROUP TECHNIQUES To be used when making decisions in a group is necessary. - The Nominal Group Technique - The Delphi Method - Hartnett''s Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making Model - The Stepladder Technique - DeBono''s Six Thinking Hats - The Charette Procedure - RAPID CHAPTERS 8 AND 9 look at decisions in corporate strategy and analyse a decision''s consequence 8 - CORPORATE STRATEGY These decision tools have all been developed for corporations, but they still hold value for smaller businesses. - The BCG Matrix - The Advantage Matrix - The GE Matrix - Blind Spot Analysis 9 - CONSEQUENCES In other words: "how can I make sure that the decision I made is the best one and will work in my specific situation?" Unfortunately nobody can answer this. Any decision method can only skew the odds of having made the right decision in your favour. That said, there are a few techniques you can apply. - Impact Assessment - Plus-Minus-Interesting - Decision Trees - Cost-Benefit Analysis - Futures Wheel
The Art of Decision Making
Author: John D. Arnold
Publisher: AMACOM/American Management Association
ISBN: 9780814475379
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Publisher: AMACOM/American Management Association
ISBN: 9780814475379
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty
Author: Vincent A. W. J. Marchau
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030052524
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
This open access book focuses on both the theory and practice associated with the tools and approaches for decisionmaking in the face of deep uncertainty. It explores approaches and tools supporting the design of strategic plans under deep uncertainty, and their testing in the real world, including barriers and enablers for their use in practice. The book broadens traditional approaches and tools to include the analysis of actors and networks related to the problem at hand. It also shows how lessons learned in the application process can be used to improve the approaches and tools used in the design process. The book offers guidance in identifying and applying appropriate approaches and tools to design plans, as well as advice on implementing these plans in the real world. For decisionmakers and practitioners, the book includes realistic examples and practical guidelines that should help them understand what decisionmaking under deep uncertainty is and how it may be of assistance to them. Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty: From Theory to Practice is divided into four parts. Part I presents five approaches for designing strategic plans under deep uncertainty: Robust Decision Making, Dynamic Adaptive Planning, Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways, Info-Gap Decision Theory, and Engineering Options Analysis. Each approach is worked out in terms of its theoretical foundations, methodological steps to follow when using the approach, latest methodological insights, and challenges for improvement. In Part II, applications of each of these approaches are presented. Based on recent case studies, the practical implications of applying each approach are discussed in depth. Part III focuses on using the approaches and tools in real-world contexts, based on insights from real-world cases. Part IV contains conclusions and a synthesis of the lessons that can be drawn for designing, applying, and implementing strategic plans under deep uncertainty, as well as recommendations for future work. The publication of this book has been funded by the Radboud University, the RAND Corporation, Delft University of Technology, and Deltares.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030052524
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
This open access book focuses on both the theory and practice associated with the tools and approaches for decisionmaking in the face of deep uncertainty. It explores approaches and tools supporting the design of strategic plans under deep uncertainty, and their testing in the real world, including barriers and enablers for their use in practice. The book broadens traditional approaches and tools to include the analysis of actors and networks related to the problem at hand. It also shows how lessons learned in the application process can be used to improve the approaches and tools used in the design process. The book offers guidance in identifying and applying appropriate approaches and tools to design plans, as well as advice on implementing these plans in the real world. For decisionmakers and practitioners, the book includes realistic examples and practical guidelines that should help them understand what decisionmaking under deep uncertainty is and how it may be of assistance to them. Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty: From Theory to Practice is divided into four parts. Part I presents five approaches for designing strategic plans under deep uncertainty: Robust Decision Making, Dynamic Adaptive Planning, Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways, Info-Gap Decision Theory, and Engineering Options Analysis. Each approach is worked out in terms of its theoretical foundations, methodological steps to follow when using the approach, latest methodological insights, and challenges for improvement. In Part II, applications of each of these approaches are presented. Based on recent case studies, the practical implications of applying each approach are discussed in depth. Part III focuses on using the approaches and tools in real-world contexts, based on insights from real-world cases. Part IV contains conclusions and a synthesis of the lessons that can be drawn for designing, applying, and implementing strategic plans under deep uncertainty, as well as recommendations for future work. The publication of this book has been funded by the Radboud University, the RAND Corporation, Delft University of Technology, and Deltares.
Decisions with Multiple Objectives
Author: Ralph L. Keeney
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521438834
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 596
Book Description
This book describes how a confused decision maker, who wishes to make a reasonable and responsible choice among alternatives, can systematically probe their thoughts and feelings in order to make the critically important trade-offs between incommensurable objectives.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521438834
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 596
Book Description
This book describes how a confused decision maker, who wishes to make a reasonable and responsible choice among alternatives, can systematically probe their thoughts and feelings in order to make the critically important trade-offs between incommensurable objectives.
Decision Making Under Uncertainty
Author: Mykel J. Kochenderfer
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262331713
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
An introduction to decision making under uncertainty from a computational perspective, covering both theory and applications ranging from speech recognition to airborne collision avoidance. Many important problems involve decision making under uncertainty—that is, choosing actions based on often imperfect observations, with unknown outcomes. Designers of automated decision support systems must take into account the various sources of uncertainty while balancing the multiple objectives of the system. This book provides an introduction to the challenges of decision making under uncertainty from a computational perspective. It presents both the theory behind decision making models and algorithms and a collection of example applications that range from speech recognition to aircraft collision avoidance. Focusing on two methods for designing decision agents, planning and reinforcement learning, the book covers probabilistic models, introducing Bayesian networks as a graphical model that captures probabilistic relationships between variables; utility theory as a framework for understanding optimal decision making under uncertainty; Markov decision processes as a method for modeling sequential problems; model uncertainty; state uncertainty; and cooperative decision making involving multiple interacting agents. A series of applications shows how the theoretical concepts can be applied to systems for attribute-based person search, speech applications, collision avoidance, and unmanned aircraft persistent surveillance. Decision Making Under Uncertainty unifies research from different communities using consistent notation, and is accessible to students and researchers across engineering disciplines who have some prior exposure to probability theory and calculus. It can be used as a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in fields including computer science, aerospace and electrical engineering, and management science. It will also be a valuable professional reference for researchers in a variety of disciplines.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262331713
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
An introduction to decision making under uncertainty from a computational perspective, covering both theory and applications ranging from speech recognition to airborne collision avoidance. Many important problems involve decision making under uncertainty—that is, choosing actions based on often imperfect observations, with unknown outcomes. Designers of automated decision support systems must take into account the various sources of uncertainty while balancing the multiple objectives of the system. This book provides an introduction to the challenges of decision making under uncertainty from a computational perspective. It presents both the theory behind decision making models and algorithms and a collection of example applications that range from speech recognition to aircraft collision avoidance. Focusing on two methods for designing decision agents, planning and reinforcement learning, the book covers probabilistic models, introducing Bayesian networks as a graphical model that captures probabilistic relationships between variables; utility theory as a framework for understanding optimal decision making under uncertainty; Markov decision processes as a method for modeling sequential problems; model uncertainty; state uncertainty; and cooperative decision making involving multiple interacting agents. A series of applications shows how the theoretical concepts can be applied to systems for attribute-based person search, speech applications, collision avoidance, and unmanned aircraft persistent surveillance. Decision Making Under Uncertainty unifies research from different communities using consistent notation, and is accessible to students and researchers across engineering disciplines who have some prior exposure to probability theory and calculus. It can be used as a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in fields including computer science, aerospace and electrical engineering, and management science. It will also be a valuable professional reference for researchers in a variety of disciplines.