There’s been much activity regarding the spreadsheet for performing multiple-criteria, multiple option decision analysis.
The spreadsheet was a temporary measure for my personal use. Seeing the response and need for this… well, it is time for the full-blown program. A program is in progress to make this analysis a whole lot easier. The first version will have the following functions:
- It allows the user to add/change/remove both criteria and options.
- It allows the user to select the 3-level comparison (more, the same, or less) or to use a 5-level comparison (much more, more, the same, less, much less)
- Simple output text file or possibly HTML containing all the criteria and their weights, all the options and their weights by criterion, and total weight
Then future releases of this program will include additional features:
- Simple voting on options (one criterion, just a selection from multiple options)
- Simple weighting (one criterion, multiple options, 3- or 5-level comparisons)
- Fancier output file if the HTML is not sufficient, maybe an Excel spreadsheet in its XML format for easy import
The hope is to create a small, executable version that people can use by just copying it to their PC and running it. I am also hoping to set this up as a project on Sourceforge.net or other open source repository so that people can download the program or even get the source code.
And it will be free. I love freeware. And I feel compelled to reciprocate, return the favor.
I have had this program running for many years as a Microsoft Access database (old version), and it creates some nice reports. This program doesn’t work will with the newer versions of Microsoft Access. And the user interface is not fault-tolerant meaning the wrong keystrokes result in disaster. In its original state, this program is not for public consumption.
The plan is to have this up and running before New Year’s Day. That way, we can go through our New Year’s resolutions and throw out the unlikely misfits among the bunch.
And if you have some features you want to see, please let me know via comments. These likely won’t make it into the first release, but hopefully queue up requests for the subsequent updates.
In case you don’t get to stop by in the mean time,
Have have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
