Breaking problems down into their constituent elements is a tried and tested decision-making technique. When choosing a holiday, for example, we may consider:
- cost
- weather
- accomodation
- activities
- travel time
These (informally ranked) criteria are then used to evaluate the various options offered by the travel agent. The holiday we finally book is the one we feel scores best against our model—i.e. our prioritized criteria.
At Decision Mechanics we take this fundamental approach to decision-making and turbo-charge it. Software is used to construct and manage a weighted hierarchy of criteria. This hierarchy represents the current requirement at any point in the process. Version control is used to capture the trajectory of the model as it is modified, providing a comprehensive decision audit trail.
Graphical “what-if” tools are used to test the robustness of the model to erroneous assumptions. Decision-makers can interact directly with their problem to enhance their understanding of the trade-offs available to them. The transparent, natural approach used in multi-criteria decision-making ensures that the problem owners remain firmly in control of their destiny.
