We can ask ourselves is:  Which choice, it means an output of decision making process, is right?

We try to understand it on the basis of this example. An idea of an application of a type of decision making is presented in the video. It known as multi criterion decision making. The idea here is that there is a lot of different dimensions and you have a couple choices, and you are trying to figure out which choice is better.

So how does this work?

Let’s suppose you are looking for a small house and you are trying to decide, should I buy this house, or there is some other house on the strret.

Now, if you think about making that sort of decision, a house has all sorts of dimensions to it. So, there is square feet, there is the number of bedrooms, there is number of bathrooms, there is the lot size. There’s the location. There’s the condition of the house.

So, If you try to keep all these things in your head, that can be really complicated. One way to do multi criterion decision making is just to say okay let’s just create a table. These are all the dimensions in the Table 1.  So now, what I can do is I can write down the exactly values for dimensions (characteristics, parameters, criteria) of these two houses.

What can I do in the next step? I can compare these criteria and say which ones wins. So, I can say, on square footage the first house wins, on bedrooms the first house wins, on bathrooms the second house wins etc.

So, what I get is that the first house gets a total of four, and the second house gets a total of two. Therefore, I can deduce anything and say, the house one seems like a better house, right? Because it wins on four of the six criteria.

And this is a way how we can make ‘rational’ decisions. The decision takes the account qualitatively comparison of these houses.

So, let’s go back to our house case. We have four reasons why I should buy house one and two reasons why I should buy house two. I think about my good decision. Is it right? Also, is not the basement important to my new house?  Should I include a basement assessment into the criteria? We add this new criterion to the Table 2. What will it happen? Now I can say okay, here is all these things I care about, right?

So now, there’s house one and house two and maybe again the house one wins on square feet, number of bedrooms but it doesn’t win on bathrooms or lot size and it wins on lot location and condition, but suppose the house two wins on basement. We have four and three total evaluation of wins in this moment. Is this enough rational support for my decision? What if I am wrong? Can I work with an importance (a weight) of individual criteria?

It could be that I know, square footage doesn’t matter to me that much. Nor does number of bedrooms so go, give each of these one. But number of bathrooms and lot size matter to me I give two. Location and condition don’t matter to me very much, and having a basement is important.

It could be that I know, square footage doesn’t matter to me that much. Nor does number of bedrooms so go, give each of these one. But number of bathrooms and lot size matter to me I give two. Location and condition don’t matter to me very much, and having a basement is important.

Well now. If I do this, the house one gets a total four and the house two gets a total six. And so now, it is the house two which wins.

We can tell, that another way we go. We consider quantitative weights, not only just take into account qualitatively, but actually quantitatively which is better to measure the differences. We speak about the quantitative multi criterion decision making model.

Note: Reference of the video (the recording time 00:30-02:30 and 04:30-06:50 is particularly relevant to the example): PAGE, S. E. 2012. 4 2. Multi Criterion Decision Making. Model Thinking. [online]. [cit. 2023-02-20]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCNWpcKmXxQ