Multi-criteria decision making

Why

Improve the quality of complex decisions

How

Most decision-making models distinguish many phasess. In general, you will have a preparation phases to investigate the different alternatives, the criteria and their weight. Also involve the relevant stakeholders. After that, the criteria can be evaluated per option, leading to the favourite option being chosen.

Practice

Almost all IT projects involve complex decisions. In methods like Scrum and lean, the decisions are postponed as late as possible to have more information for making the right decision or to change a decision if it does not work.

Ingredients

• Time to iterate between judging options and adjusting criteria.
• A good set of initial requirements/criteria as a prerequisite.
• Reliable information about the different alternatives.
• A lack of prejudice.
• A technique for weighting criteria against options like a ‘decision tree’.

Phases

• Design

Trade-offs

Read more about the trade-offs: Inspiration or Data / Expertise or Fit / Overview or Certainty.