The PROACT Model

Thinking over the past semester (hard to believe there are only a few weeks left) I have decided to write a few posts to summarize a few of the key concepts I’ve learned.

The first concept or tool is used to assist in complex decision making. It is taken from the book Smart Choices: A  Practical Guide to Making Better Life Decisions, by John Hammond, Ralph Keeney, and Howard Raiffa. The authors developed a model they call the PrOACT Model, which is an acronym for defining the Problem, specifying the Objectives, creating Alternatives, understanding the Consequences, and grappling with Trade offs. I used the PrOACT Model to help me reach a decision as to what internship I should apply for this summer.

The “Pr” in PrOACT stands for Problem, or more specifically, defining the problem. How the problem is approached will greatly influence the outcome of the decision, so I wanted to make sure that I gave a lot of meaningful thought to my problem.

When I first began thinking of my problem, I figured it would simply be “should I apply for an internship for this summer?” This question was triggered at new student orientation when all the second-year students reported on the internships they had completed over the summer. So the issue really became “what do you want to do this summer?”

In trying to define my problem, I asked myself several questions, such as, “Do I even want to do an internship? What could I do with your summer instead? Would not doing an internship compromise my future goals?”

In answering these questions I came to the realization that, indeed, I did want to complete an internship over the summer, but I still had no idea what my options were or what my search criteria should be. But after a few days of thinking it over, I knew that my problem definition was:

Which internship should I apply for?

I’ll continue with formulating Objectives in my next post.

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