Expert Choice Four Step Decision Making Process 1) Drag and Drop Model Structuring Expert Choice’s Structuring is a freestyle, interactive technique for building a model that simulates the flow of ideas, and helps decision-makers organize the objectives of their decision into theme clusters. Top-Down Structuring: An individual or group brainstorms and clusters objectives using an affinity diagraming white-board. The clusters of objectives and sub-objectives become a decision hierarchy to be used for prioritization and evaluation of alternatives. Bottom-up Structuring: Decision-makers begin by listing a set of candidate alternatives and their pros and cons. The pros and cons are converted to objectives and clustered to form your decision hierarchy. 2) Prioritizing Objectives using Pairwise Comparisons Expert Choice uses the pairwise comparison process to develop priorities for decision objectives and alternatives. Group judgments can be entered using radio frequency keypads or remotely via the Internet. Following are the three ways to make pairwise comparisons: Verbal: Decision-makers compare objectives for their relative importance and alternatives for their relative preferences using the following words: Equal, Moderate, Strong, Very Strong and Extreme. Numerical: A nine point numerical scale is used to define the relative importance of your decision variables. Graphical: Judgments are made by adjusting the relative length of two bars until the bars represent how much more important one element is to the other. 3) Evaluation of Alternatives Once the objectives have been prioritized, Expert Choice provides several ways to evaluate the alternatives. 1. By using one of the three pairwise modes described above to compare the alternatives for their preferability with respect to each objective, or 2. By using the Data Grid feature to create one of the following scales to prioritize each alternative. a. Ratings – Used when you want to "rate" alternatives using intensities such as Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor. This is often the case for subjective aspects of an evaluation or when there is no hard data. Pairwise comparisons are used to develop ratio scale priorities for the rating intensities. Use the following features when you have data about the alternatives. b. Step Functions – A Step Function is similar to Ratings in that it consists of a scale of prioritized intensities. However, the Step Function translates the data into the appropriate rating intensity for each alternative. c. Utility Curves –Utility curves translate data into priorities. Whereas the Step Function consists of discrete steps, a Utility Curve is continuous. d. Direct – Use this to enter priorities directly. 4) Sensitivity Analysis After making judgments about the relative importance of objectives, sub-objectives and alternatives, Expert Choice’s powerful sensitivity graphs enable you to test the sensitivity of the decision to changes in priorities. These what-if scenarios are especially useful for management briefings. Expert Choice is designed for the analysis, synthesis and justification of complex decisions and evaluations for use in individual or group settings. Different versions are available to meet your unique needs. Contact one of our sales representatives to determine the version that best meets your decision-making needs.