Part 7 of a series: The process of making a better decision is very straightforward but does require practice and discipline. A good decision question at the right level helps you constrain your options on one hand yet can show just how open your decision space might be. Each alternative you might find to meet your needs will be evaluated against the two types of criteria or goal posts: mandatory and negotiable. The mandatory criteria are yes-no questions youll ask about each alternative. Either it meets the criteria or it doesnt. If the alternative meets the criteria it moves on for further consideration. If it doesnt, it dies a quick death right then and there!

Before an alternative can be evaluated against the list of negotiable criteria, the criteria must be weighed. The process of weighing lets you determine just how important one criteria is versus another and as a process, weighing must be done before any alternatives are suggested or discussed. This process is best described in a example.

Lets assume Bob needs a computer. As fast as computers evolve, he believes buying a new one is his best value and after a trip to the store discovers way too many options. He decides to do a decision analysis to find the best one. His list of mandatory criteria is pretty small: new and reliable manufacturer. As the store is a major chain, just about every model meets these mandatory criteria. He does some research on the features in some models, reads some reports and talks to some friends. The criteria list he develops is quite long and includes hard drive space, monitor size, and type of processor. Lets assume for now that these are the only criteria important to Bob.

After some thinking Bob determines his main use for the computer will be to type reports and reading email. As he thinks about these tasks he believes a large monitor will be important to see his work better. In fact, hed pay more for a larger monitor before paying more for extra memory. So he gives the monitor a weight of 10 as most important. Bob has been told also that reading email and typing reports do not require a lot of processor speed and power. However, he knows computers are always getting faster so he doesnt want to get left behind. Processor speed is therefore important, but not critical. So, relative to monitor size he weights the processor speed a 5. And last, he looks at the hard drive size. To weigh this feature he searches the sizes of documents on his current computer and notices all the spare space he has after literally years of use. Bob concludes any size drive offered in a new computer will likely suffice, so he weighs this feature a 1.

Of the alternatives Bob will consider, each will in some way meet the negotiable criteria, some better than the others.

To evaluate the options Bob will score, or rank each alternative relative to each other for the criteria, one at a time. The options are ranked for monitor size with the largest given a 10, as it best meets the criteria. The next largest option might be given a 9 or an 8 if its close in size, but smaller. If the monitor is quite a bit smaller, Bob may assign a score of 3 or 4 to that option. The task here is beginning to separate the options relative to one another. For each of the criteria the best option is selected and given the highest score. The remaining options are scored relative to the best one for each and every criteria.

Theres a key point here we want to highlight. As Bob begins his analysis he will amass quite a bit of information. In fact his analysis may take hours or days of research and involve note books of information, such as he might gather in buying a house. The key then is to track each bit of information in a logical and organized fashion. We do this for two reasons. First to insure we are making the best analysis and to not have to re-gather information or complete rework. Second, if we are to sell our recommendation to our family for example it will be critical to share all of the information weve gathered in our ranking. How do we know one option scores a 10, and the other a 2? We look at the information that has been gathered and recorded.

Once all the information is gathered and ranked, the scores are then multiplied together and added for each alternative. Net scores will emerge for each option showing which is likely the best option, and which are less likely to be satisfactory.

There are two more steps to this process. First, one must understand what might go wrong with the best option. There is NO perfect answer to any question and only understanding this can help you plan the decision and execute it with great probability of success. And second, the last step is to DECIDE! So many times we evaluate over and over. If youve gotten this far youve done a great job; probably better than youve ever done I suspect. So, make your choice and move!

In our next article, well discuss ways to insure your decision is robust and successful.