Decision Management

Making decisions is one of the most important processes practiced by systems engineers, project managers, and all team members. Sound decisions are based on good judgment and experience. There are concepts, methods, processes, and tools that can assist in the process of decision making, especially in making comparisons of decision alternatives. These tools can also assist in building team consensus in selecting and supporting the decision made and in defending it to others.

Practical Considerations

Key pitfalls and good practices related to decision analysis are described below.

Pitfalls

Some of the key pitfalls are:

1. False confidence in the accuracy of values used in decisions.
2. Not engaging experts and holding peer reviews. The decision-maker should engage experts to validate decision values.
3. Prime sources of errors in risky decision-making include false assumptions, not having an accurate estimation of the probabilities, relying on expectations, difficulties in measuring the utility function, and forecast errors.
4. The analytical hierarchy process may not handle real-life situations taking into account the theoretical difficulties in using eigenvectors.

Good Practices

Some good practices are:

1. Use progressive model building. Detail and sophistication can be added as confidence in the model is built up.
2. Measurements need to be tied to the information needs of the decision makers.
3. Define selection criteria and process (and success criteria) before identifying trade alternatives.

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