Improving the generation of decision objectives
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Real decision makers exhibit significant shortcomings in the generation of objectives for decisions that they face. Prior research has illustrated the magnitude of this shortcoming but not its causes. In this paper, we identify two distinct impediments to the generation of decision objectives: not thinking broadly enough about the range of relevant objectives, and not thinking deeply enough to articulate every objective within the range that is considered. To test these explanations and explore ways of stimulating a more comprehensive set of objectives, we present three experiments involving a variety of interventions: the provision of sample objectives, organization of objectives by category, and direct challenges to do better, with or without a warning that important objectives are missing. The use of category names and direct challenges with a warning both led to improvements in the quantity of objectives generated without impacting their quality; other interventions yielded less improvement. We conclude by discussing the relevance of our findings to decision analysis and offering prescriptive implications for the elicitation of decision objectives. © 2010 INFORMS.
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Bond, SD, KA Carlson and RL Keeney (2010). Improving the generation of decision objectives. Decision Analysis, 7(3). pp. 238–255. 10.1287/deca.1100.0172 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4421.
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Ralph L. Keeney
Ralph L. Keeney received Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is Research Professor Emeritus of Business Administration, Duke University, and Research Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Southern California. His areas of expertise are the decision sciences, risk analysis, and systems management. He is an authority on decision analysis, decision making with multiple objectives, and value-focused thinking. During his professional career, Dr. Keeney has consulted on a wide range of decisions including corporate management problems, public policy, environmental problems, and energy decisions. He has been a consultant for several organizations including Fair Isaac, Seagate Technology, American Express, British Columbia Hydro, Pacific Gas and Electric, BC Gas , Kaiser Permanente, Hewlett-Packard, the Electric Power Research Institute, Greater Vancouver Regional District, Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG (Germany), Ministry of Public Works (Mexico), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria), U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Professor Keeney's books, which have been translated into numerous languages, include Decisions with Multiple Objectives with Howard Raiffa (1976, 1993), ValueFocused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decisionmaking (1992), and Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions, with John S. Hammond and Howard Raiffa (1999). He recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Waterloo in Canada and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering of the U.S.
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