Airport Collaborative Decision Making (CDM)
Each organisation is responsible primarily for its own survival. Therefore, organisations always focus on optimising their own processes and their own IT systems, a difficult task if the businesses along the value chain are not in sync. Airport operators, airlines and ground handlers have become aware that collaboration and technology can be used to make their business more efficient and, as a value chain, become more competitive and profitable.
Operational decisions are dependent of information and the collaboration of many people. No one functional area has all the information, no two people have the same values, and all interpret the information through different experiences and organisation loyalty. One of the most effective ways to manage this situation is to ensure that everyone on the decision-making team understands the problem, they are working on the same issue, they have bought into the alternatives being considered, they have worked together to generate a set of decision criteria and they all contribute to the resolution. This builds accountability and buy-in.
The terms "collaboration," "consensus," and "compromise" are often confused. Collaboration implies sharing information, consensus indicates general agreement, and compromise entails giving up a position.
Collaboration, on the other hand, attempts to build a shared vision, accountability, and buy-in, while some on the team may compromise their positions. The people realize that their ideas will not always prevail, but through their contribution to the team, they are in fact an important part of the choices made.
