Changes between Version 26 and Version 27 of BluePrintDecisionMaking


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Timestamp:
09/23/09 15:35:59 (16 years ago)
Author:
Connie White
Comment:

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  • BluePrintDecisionMaking

    v26 v27  
    1 = Decision Making =
    2 
    3 The Decision Making module is designed to support decision making by large groups of Crisis Management Experts.  It guides experts to generate, debate and explore alternative solutions producing an ongoing ranked list of alternative solutions that reflects the group's opinion at any point in time. This system also accounts for uncertainty.
     1                             
     2----
     3
     4                               =  The Delphi Decision Maker  =
     5                                 == Functional Specification ==
     6
     7----
     8=== Overview ===
     9The Delphi Decision Maker module helps groups create a ranked list.
     10
     11More specifically, it is designed to support the decision making of large groups of Crisis Management Experts.  It guides experts to generate, debate and explore alternative solutions producing an real time ranked list of alternative solutions that reflects the group's opinion at any point in time quickly. This system accounts for uncertainty.
    412
    513=== Summary ===
    614Increasingly, extreme events demand large groups of experts distributed in both location and time to communicate, plan, and coordinate actions. When responding to extreme events, very often there are both alternative actions that might be considered and far more requests for actions than can be executed immediately. The relative desirability of each option for action could be a collaborative expression of a significant number of emergency managers and experts trying to manage the most desirable alternatives at any given time, in real time. This same decision process could be used for a number of tasks but will be designed for distributed dynamic decision making during time critical phases of extreme events. This is because our proposed system is specially designed to save time, remove ambiguities, and decrease uncertainty, major challenges described in the literature on time critical decision making during the volatile time critical phases of emergency.
     15
     16=== Scenarios ===
     17
     18Scenario 1:  Transport Canadian Project (real case)
     19
     20
     21The problem the group wanted to address was finding a method for: Identifying and Ranking Sustainable Transport Practices in Urban Regions.  Making Decisions about Identifying, Adopting, or Implementing Sustainable Transport Practices. Below is the two page description of what the system can do and how the users can use it for their needs. 
     22
     23
     24The Delphi Decision Maker is an online decision support system available to
     25users anywhere there is WEB connectivity. It is designed to support large groups
     26of professionals engaged in urgent, distributed, dynamic decision and option
     27analysis activities.
     28
     29This process is designed to handle real-world problems, and can be used where
     30distributed subgroups and individuals are determining the options and analyzing
     31them to solve a complex problem or emergency. And as a further important
     32feature of the dynamic Delphi approach, by virtue of being dynamic it provides a
     33real-time mechanism to support continuous planning operations, whereby many
     34individuals add intelligence and new input to the updating of plans, or deal with
     35new products, cost overruns, and other events.
     36
     37The central idea behind a Delphi process is that the collective opinion of a group
     38of professionals is more accurate and informed than their separate opinions.
     39That is, the group approach produces “collective intelligence”, and is a means
     40for a number of professionals to interact in such a way that: 1) They can offer a
     41feasible and analyzed list of options from which a decision maker can select the
     42mix that satisfies the current problem; and, 2) They can better understand why
     43some options were less satisfactory than those chosen.
     44A dynamic Delphi process can be used to help a group of professionals identify,
     45evaluate and select an optimal-ranked list of options.
     46
     47This particular method uses voting to identify areas of agreement and
     48disagreement. Exposing areas of disagreement informs the group where they
     49may need to focus their discussion input. On the other hand, letting a group
     50know that they agree on an issue informs participants in a timely manner that
     51consensus has been reached, and directs them to concentrate their effort on the
     52next item on the agenda. While it is always important to respect the participants’
     53time, it is even more important to do so in this environment because of the urgent
     54aspect that could underlie the problem under consideration.
     55
     56In a Delphi with heterogeneous professionals, they are asked to vote only on
     57what they feel confident about, or wait until more information on uncertainties is
     58provided by other experts in a field. Participants are informed of how many
     59participants have voted on a given item, as well as the degree to which more
     60votes are expected in the future and how that could affect the results.
     61
     62This Delphi process is dynamic because of the following reasons:
     63An expert can participate in any phase of the decision-making process
     64at any time, that is, 1) problem identification, 2) information gathering, 3)
     65solution generation, 4) evaluation.
     66
     67
     68􀂃 This feature allows individuals to have discussions in forums where
     69they can present information and debate issues as replies to
     70specific options. Because the dialogue is text-based, others can
     71read and benefit from the content.
     72An expert can participate online at any time during the day or night,
     73given an Internet connection and web browser.
     74􀂃 This feature helps professionals dedicate thoughts and ideas to the
     75discourse as they arise after having time to think about a problem.
     76This means they can choose a time to participate that is convenient
     77for them. However, when some issues call for face-to-face
     78meetings, the Dynamic Delphi approach can be used in preparation
     79for, during, and/or after the group meeting as the meeting agenda
     80or summary instrument.
     81There is real-time feedback of both the professionals’ individual opinions
     82and of the group’s opinion
     83Experts can vote, change their votes or withhold their votes for some
     84reason.
     85􀂃 The merits of the situation can change, or new information can
     86sway opinions. Either way, the vote mimics the real-time opinion of
     87the expert and, hence, the group.
     88Not all members of the group have to interact in order for a decision
     89process to continue.
     90􀂃 There may be cases where some of the participants cannot be
     91present, or they may feel they do not have the expertise to engage
     92in a specific option.
     93Uncertainty as to the status of the current vote (How final are the votes?)
     94is calculated, and produced as feedback to the participants.
     95The system requests individual comparisons of options for preferences,
     96and converts this rank-order information to an interval scale where
     97distance represents the degree of preference between options.
     98􀂃 This method has been modified to handle incomplete data with
     99respect to participation in voting.
     100
     101As an example for this Transport Canada project, a mission to examine options
     102for implementing sustainable transport practices could entail the need for
     103professionals in 20 to 30 different professional fields, including expertise
     104regarding insurance and liability matters which restrict or prohibit using privatelyowned
     105vehicles for collective uses such as car-pooling, ride-sharing, etc.
     106
     107When it comes to taking options and discussing them on arelative basis in order to havethe information to choose which options should go
     108forward to implementation, the dynamic Delphi will be the most useful way to
     109involve a large, heterogeneous group necessary to uncover all the potential
     110bottlenecks and concerns that must be addressed and reconciled.
     111
     112
    7113
    8114=== Definitions ===