All entries for Friday 08 March 2013

Data collection as a key step in making decision

Today we had presentations. Although each group presented and came to certain decisions about WaveRiders in their own way, still there were some common decision tools that almost each group tried to apply. These are Decision Tree Analysis and Grid Analysis. Hence the question arises: what made almost every group to use these two tools?

As it was mentioned during lectures, we usually decide on tool considering different information: the amount of data, timescale, complexity of decision, number of participants in decision and factors in the decision. All these are types of information needed to decide on tool, which highlights the importance of one process, - data collection. So, as I saw it today, Grid and Tree Analysis is a good combination of how you can analyze both, different scenarios and decision criteria. When doing Grid we mainly focus on options’ comparison based on criteria analysis, while in Tree we analyze various combinations of situations.

Type of data for each of them:

• Grid. Both, Qualitative + quantitative data
• Tree Analysis. Possibilities + numerical data

To sum up, these two tools can be effectively used separately, but to my opinion they are compliment each other and help to make more complex decision. For example, our tree analysis showed best and worst scenarios for two locations. That information was used as criteria for Grid Analysis that defined our decision.

Arina Borodina : 08 Mar 2013 15:00 |  Tags: Rdm |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem