Tim Van Gelder, arguably the worlds greatest authority on critical thinking, asks “What is Decision Engineering?”:

 My favorite definition of the engineer is somebody who can’t help but think that there must be a better way to do this. A more comprehensive and workmanlike definition is given by Wikipedia:

“Engineering is the application of scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to invent, design, build, maintain, research, and improve structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes.”

The activities mentioned above seem to fit this very broad concept: we were engaged to help improve or develop systems – in our case, systems for making decisions. It is therefore tempting to describe some of what we do as decision engineering.”…Decision engineering is applying relevant knowledge to design, build, maintain, and improve systems for making decisions.”

“Relevant knowledge can include knowledge of at least three kinds:

• Theoretical knowledge from any relevant field of inquiry;
• Practical knowledge (know-how, or tacit knowledge) of the decision engineer;
• “Local” knowledge of the particular context and challenges of decision making, contributed by people already in or familiar with the context, such as the decision makers themselves.”

…in order to improve a particular decision system, a decision engineer might use approaches such as:

• Bringing standard engineering principles and techniques to bear on making decisions
• Using more structured decision methods, including the application of decision analysis techniques
• Basing decisions on “big data” and “data science,” such as predictive analytics

…In short, I like this more general definition of decision engineering (in four words or less, building better decision systems) because it seems to get at the essence of what decision engineers do, allowing but not requiring that highly technical, quantitative approaches might be used.”

Source: What is Decision Engineering? | Tim van Gelder