Multi-criteria Decision Making

Why

Improve the quality of complex decisions.

How

Most decision-making models involve many phases, for example a preparation phase to investigate different alternatives, decision criteria, and their weights. After that, the criteria can be evaluated per option, leading to the favourite option being chosen.

Ingredients

• The right stakeholders

• A good set of initial requirements/criteria as a prerequisite.

• Time to iterate between judging options and adjusting criteria.

• Reliable information about the different alternatives.

• No prejudice.

• A technique for weighting criteria against options.

Practice

Almost all projects involve complex decisions. In methods like Scrum and Lean, decisions are postponed as much as possible to ensure that more information is available for making the right decision, or to change a decision if it does not work.