Changes between Version 26 and Version 27 of BluePrintDecisionMaking

Timestamp:

09/23/09 15:35:59 (16 years ago)

Author:

Connie White

Comment:

--

BluePrintDecisionMaking

@@ -1 @@
-= Decision Making =
-
-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.
+                             
+----
+
+                               =  The Delphi Decision Maker  =
+                                 == Functional Specification ==
+
+----
+=== Overview ===
+The Delphi Decision Maker module helps groups create a ranked list.
+
+More 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.
 
 === Summary ===
 Increasingly, 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.
+
+=== Scenarios ===
+
+Scenario 1:  Transport Canadian Project (real case)
+
+
+The 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.  
+
+
+The Delphi Decision Maker is an online decision support system available to
+users anywhere there is WEB connectivity. It is designed to support large groups
+of professionals engaged in urgent, distributed, dynamic decision and option
+analysis activities.
+
+This process is designed to handle real-world problems, and can be used where
+distributed subgroups and individuals are determining the options and analyzing
+them to solve a complex problem or emergency. And as a further important
+feature of the dynamic Delphi approach, by virtue of being dynamic it provides a
+real-time mechanism to support continuous planning operations, whereby many
+individuals add intelligence and new input to the updating of plans, or deal with
+new products, cost overruns, and other events.
+
+The central idea behind a Delphi process is that the collective opinion of a group
+of professionals is more accurate and informed than their separate opinions.
+That is, the group approach produces “collective intelligence”, and is a means
+for a number of professionals to interact in such a way that: 1) They can offer a
+feasible and analyzed list of options from which a decision maker can select the
+mix that satisfies the current problem; and, 2) They can better understand why
+some options were less satisfactory than those chosen.
+A dynamic Delphi process can be used to help a group of professionals identify,
+evaluate and select an optimal-ranked list of options.
+
+This particular method uses voting to identify areas of agreement and
+disagreement. Exposing areas of disagreement informs the group where they
+may need to focus their discussion input. On the other hand, letting a group
+know that they agree on an issue informs participants in a timely manner that
+consensus has been reached, and directs them to concentrate their effort on the
+next item on the agenda. While it is always important to respect the participants’
+time, it is even more important to do so in this environment because of the urgent
+aspect that could underlie the problem under consideration.
+
+In a Delphi with heterogeneous professionals, they are asked to vote only on
+what they feel confident about, or wait until more information on uncertainties is
+provided by other experts in a field. Participants are informed of how many
+participants have voted on a given item, as well as the degree to which more
+votes are expected in the future and how that could affect the results.
+
+This Delphi process is dynamic because of the following reasons:
+An expert can participate in any phase of the decision-making process
+at any time, that is, 1) problem identification, 2) information gathering, 3)
+solution generation, 4) evaluation.
+
+
+􀂃 This feature allows individuals to have discussions in forums where
+they can present information and debate issues as replies to
+specific options. Because the dialogue is text-based, others can
+read and benefit from the content.
+An expert can participate online at any time during the day or night,
+given an Internet connection and web browser.
+􀂃 This feature helps professionals dedicate thoughts and ideas to the
+discourse as they arise after having time to think about a problem.
+This means they can choose a time to participate that is convenient
+for them. However, when some issues call for face-to-face
+meetings, the Dynamic Delphi approach can be used in preparation
+for, during, and/or after the group meeting as the meeting agenda
+or summary instrument.
+There is real-time feedback of both the professionals’ individual opinions
+and of the group’s opinion
+Experts can vote, change their votes or withhold their votes for some
+reason.
+􀂃 The merits of the situation can change, or new information can
+sway opinions. Either way, the vote mimics the real-time opinion of
+the expert and, hence, the group.
+Not all members of the group have to interact in order for a decision
+process to continue.
+􀂃 There may be cases where some of the participants cannot be
+present, or they may feel they do not have the expertise to engage
+in a specific option.
+Uncertainty as to the status of the current vote (How final are the votes?)
+is calculated, and produced as feedback to the participants.
+The system requests individual comparisons of options for preferences,
+and converts this rank-order information to an interval scale where
+distance represents the degree of preference between options.
+􀂃 This method has been modified to handle incomplete data with
+respect to participation in voting.
+
+As an example for this Transport Canada project, a mission to examine options
+for implementing sustainable transport practices could entail the need for
+professionals in 20 to 30 different professional fields, including expertise
+regarding insurance and liability matters which restrict or prohibit using privatelyowned
+vehicles for collective uses such as car-pooling, ride-sharing, etc.
+
+When it comes to taking options and discussing them on arelative basis in order to havethe information to choose which options should go
+forward to implementation, the dynamic Delphi will be the most useful way to
+involve a large, heterogeneous group necessary to uncover all the potential
+bottlenecks and concerns that must be addressed and reconciled.
+
+
 
 === Definitions ===