Theodor Stewart (University of Cape Town)

Principles and Practice of Multicriteria Decision Analysis

The role of multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) in the broader context of decision science will be discussed. We will review the problem structuring needs of MCDA, and caution against over-simplistic approaches. Different schools of thinking in MCDA, primarily for deterministic problems, will be introduced, to demonstrate that even such problems include many complexities and pitfalls. The practicalities will be illustrated by means of value function methods (and perhaps goal programming if time permits). We will conclude with consideration of the impact of uncertainty on MCDA and the role of scenario planning in this regard.