Decision-Making Methodology

De-risk your Important Decisions!

To make the best decision, one that gives you the greatest possibility of the most favorable outcome, you should use a proven methodology. Definitive Pro uses our methodology that has proven successful over many years. It embodies the latest advancements of decision science, data analytics, and our patented techniques.

The Definitive Decision-Making Methodology

The Definitive methodology starts with a goal. This may be a problem that needs solving, an opportunity to evaluate, or a risk that that needs to be mitigated. In this early stage, it’s essential to have domain knowledge related to the goal. This can be achieved via a stakeholder engagement process and using subject matter experts.

In “Criteria”, the team works collaboratively to establish criteria for how the alternatives will be evaluated. In this step, the team also determines their relative importance using the world’s leading technique, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP).

In “Alternatives”, the team identifies (or collects via our portal) all of the alternatives that have been submitted.

In “Proactive use of data”, the alternatives are evaluated. Where data exists, the alternatives are scored quantitatively using rating scales. Otherwise, the alternatives are evaluated qualitatively by the participants using their judgment. Each participant rates each alternative against each criterion, and the results are averaged and weighted resulting in a list of alternatives in priority order. This is referred to as prioritization.

In situations where the customer wants to proceed to priority-based budgeting by allocating resources based on identified priorities, this step continues using prescriptive analytics (the highest form of data analytics) to determine the combination of alternatives that deliver the most benefit, while also meeting all identified constraints and dependencies. This is referred to as optimization.

In “Judgment and trade-offs” the team uses the output of prioritization to make cost-benefit-risk trade-offs to select budget requests or uses the output from the optimizer. It is at this point that the superior alternatives emerge, enabling the team to make the best decision.

In “Commitment to action”, the most important and final step in the methodology, the decision participants either commit to implementing the decision or communicate the decision to those who will implement it.

What is Methodology?

Simply put, a methodology is a set of guiding principles which an individual or organization uses in order to be increasingly successful. In general, the methodology starts with a statement of the identity, objectives and basic company information. It then flows through phases of analysis components, then strategy components, and finishes with tactical plan components.