S6E6 | What is the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP)?
This season was made possible in partnership with the Society of Decision Professionals.
In this episode of Ask a Decision Engineer, Michelle Florendo explores the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP) through conversations with members at their annual conference. She speaks with Lindsay Oyola, SDP's President-Elect, and other practitioners about this unique community that brings together decision-makers from diverse industries—from pharma and energy to wildlife management and government. Discover how SDP creates connections across disciplines and provides practical tools for anyone looking to improve their decision-making quality.
“At the heart of a company is the quality of its decisions. And it’s rare that leadership programs teach you how to be a better decision maker.”
Whether you're a CEO making strategic decisions, a data scientist analyzing choices, or someone navigating personal decisions, the field of decision-making offers structured approaches that can be scaled up or down for any situation.
S6E6 | What is SDP?
This episode takes listeners inside the world of professional decision-making through Michelle's firsthand exploration of the Society of Decision Professionals conference. Through interviews with members, Michelle uncovers how this diverse community approaches decision quality and why structured decision-making frameworks matter across all contexts.
Table of Contents
Introduction
What is SDP?
Types of Programming and Engagement
The Diverse SDP Community
Decision Quality in Practice
Cross-Industry Learning
The Future of Decision Professionals
Who Should Join SDP
Conclusion
Introduction
Michelle introduces this special episode recorded at the Society of Decision Professionals annual conference, explaining her curiosity about this unique community of decision-makers. She sets the stage for exploring how professionals from vastly different industries come together around the common goal of improving decision quality.
What is SDP?
Lindsay Oyola, SDP's President-Elect traveling from Rio de Janeiro, explains that SDP brings together people from all different industries—consultants, vendors, corporate employees, government workers, and wildlife societies—united by their focus on helping make better decisions.
"What brings it all together is that they're all helping practice how we make better decisions in all of the big decisions that we need to make," Lindsay explains. The society serves as a place where members can discuss decision-making techniques and share approaches across diverse contexts.
Types of Programming and Engagement
Lindsay outlines SDP's various offerings:
Annual Conference: Three days of sessions ranging from deep mathematical approaches to behavioral and emotional aspects of decision-making, featuring true experts and practitioners.
Monthly Webinars: Global learning opportunities about new ideas and developments in the field.
Mentoring Programs: Past offerings that connected experienced practitioners with newcomers.
Global Chapters: Local meetings (monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly) with speakers and activities that build community.
The Diverse SDP Community
The SDP community spans a remarkable range of expertise and experience levels. Members include:
Advanced practitioners with 40+ years of experience
Professors who also consult
Game theory specialists working with governments and companies
Corporate decision-makers handling investment and capital decisions
Natural resource managers working with fish and wildlife
Data scientists and analysts (even those whose titles don't reflect decision work)
Lindsay emphasizes that whether you're a decision-maker or someone helping organizations use information to make decisions, SDP offers valuable learning opportunities.
Decision Quality in Practice
A conference attendee shares insights about decision quality as a structured yet flexible approach. "It's a structured way, but you can actually downsize it or upsize it whichever way you want," they explain, noting how the same principles apply whether counseling a daughter on course selection or facilitating strategic business decisions.
The approach exposes practitioners to diverse concepts including psychology (Kahneman and Tversky's work), mathematics, uncertainty analysis, and emerging technologies like AI. This interdisciplinary nature makes it difficult to box the field into any single category.
Cross-Industry Learning
Members highlight the unique networking opportunities that extend far beyond typical industry conferences. The community includes professionals from:
Pharmaceutical companies dealing with uncertainty
Government agencies
Energy sector (a major contributor to decision quality practices)
Water management and natural resources
Academia and software development
Leadership and coaching
"You get to meet like deep thinkers, professors from different universities that are either teaching decision quality or have had applications of it into software," one member notes. This cross-pollination of ideas makes attendees valuable contributors in their own work contexts.
The Future of Decision Professionals
An SDP leader expresses gratitude for the community's passion toward improving decision quality and excitement about expanding the field. Recent years have seen SDP broaden its umbrella to include more disciplines that support decision-making, integrating methods across fields with the goal of improving both quality and efficiency.
The integration of data science and AI into conferences, talks, and workshops represents a significant opportunity to reach more audiences and help more decisions be made with high quality. This expansion recognizes that achieving the field's potential requires more than just traditional decision professionals.
Who Should Join SDP
Multiple members emphasize that SDP welcomes anyone interested in decision-making, particularly those who:
Feel their current choices aren't getting them where they need to go
Experience anxiety about decisions
Want to stop second-guessing themselves
Desire greater control over their future
The society offers standards and structured approaches that can be freeing for anyone wanting to step up to leading their own lives. As one member shares through an artist's story, learning decision-making principles can be transformative for people in any field.
Conclusion
Michelle wraps up by reflecting on the diverse and welcoming nature of the SDP community, highlighting how decision-making serves as a universal skill that transcends industry boundaries. The episode demonstrates how structured approaches to decision-making can benefit anyone, from corporate executives to artists seeking greater control over their creative and personal choices.
Key Takeaways
Universal Application: Decision-making frameworks can be scaled for any situation, from personal choices to strategic business decisions
Cross-Industry Value: Learning from practitioners in different fields expands thinking beyond traditional boundaries
Community Support: SDP provides both deep learning opportunities and meaningful professional relationships
Structured Freedom: Having frameworks for decision-making can be liberating rather than constraining
Interdisciplinary Approach: The field draws from psychology, mathematics, technology, and other disciplines
Future-Focused: Integration with AI and data science is expanding the field's reach and impact
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