Multiple criteria, multiple option program, main form

The Main Form

The first step in decision analysis: obtain the criteria and the options. The program presents an opening form to do this. (Program will be ready for download by New Year’s day.)

Multiple Criteria, Multiple Options Decision Analysis, Main Form

What’s the difference between Criteria and Options?

One way to decide if something is a criterion or an option is this:

Criteria: attributes of things and actions, a comparative quality, a measure
Options: things or actions

Examples of Criteria used to compare two Options:

• Which costs less?
• Which takes more time?
• Which is easiest to do?
• Which is more pleasing to the eyes?
• Which is more colorful or tasteful?

Examples of Options (things or actions or resulting states of being):

• Buy my favorite new car
• Buy a used car
• Go back to school full-time
• Get a degree from online courses
• A new job
• This couch or that couch, or chair, or picture

After using this program for a while, you get a feeling for the difference between criteria and options. To my knowledge, there is no precisely scientific or mathematical separation of these. But it makes common sense that when comparing a thing or action or state with another, the basis of the comparison is some quality or measure that allows me to judge one from the other.

Criteria are all positive or negative

All criteria should lean the same way. That is, a higher value indicates desirability or undesirability across all criteria. For example, the two following criteria likely conflict–leaning in two different directions:

• Which item costs more?
• Which item will save me the most time?

This appears to say that both costing more and saving time are desirable. Usually, they are at odds with each other. Likely, the first criterion gets reworded as follows:

• Which item costs less?
• Which item will save me the most time?

Likewise, if you are trying to find the most undesirable options within a set of option (a form of negative analysis), then these criteria get reworded in the opposite direction so that the worst option has the highest value.

• Which item costs the most?
• Which item saves the least amount of time?

How to use the main form: the steps

The steps for using this initial form are as follows:

1. To enter a criterion, type it in the text box above the List of Criteria.
2. To remove a criterion from the list, double-click that specific criterion on the list.
3. To remove all criteria, click the Clear All Items button below the list.
4. Add and remove options in the same manner as done for Criteria.
5. If you wish to save your work to this point, (Step 2 on the form) click on Save Criteria and Options.
6. First rank the criteria (Step 3 or Rank Criteria on the form). This will take you to a different form where you select or rate each pair of criteria. This will be described in the blog on that form.
7. Sometimes, there are some criteria that have very low weights. Ranking options against these may be a waste of time. In such cases, return to the first three steps and cull out low value criteria from the rest. You may also want to re-rank the criteria again.
8. Once the criteria are ranked and assigned their weights, you can then rank the options against each criterion (Step 4 or Rank Options for Each Criterion on the form).

The print function is available through the File menu item. There are several reports that are helpful.

• Ranked criteria report: This report lists the criteria by weight in descending order. This report lets you know if there are some criteria that are just not important enough to include when ranking the options later.
• Ranked options report: This report lists the options by summary weights in descending order. This is the summary of all your work and the most important of the reports.
• Ranked options report with details: This report contains the summary report, but contains the weights for each criteria. You can see if there are bulges and dips in the numbers, and you can see what separates the winners from the losers.

A Caveat

This program is for information and entertainment. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the comparisons, weights, and process. However, this is only for information. You are responsible for any decisions you make should you base some of your rational on the reports produced here.

And I can’t refund your purchase price. This program will be free.