The Analytic Hierarchy Process is a method for decision making developed by Thomas Saaty, which supports procedures with multi-level goal hierarchies.
Purpose
- You have only a short amount of time and yet you need making decisions "correctly" daily regarding:
- Your family
- Your job
- association
- You also have to reduce controversial opinions and emotions in your team and come up with a common denominator. Normally there are 2 to 3 proposals for the solution already under discussion, but also a lot of arguments with pros & cons. The Analytic Hierarchy Process supports you sorting & evaluating all these arguments with much sense and sensibility. It combines your plausible evaluations to your optimal solution and document it transparently for everybody by:
- simple evaluation & representation of the solutions
- logic arguments & clearing emotions
- checking quality of your decision
- little need of time for your team
- high acceptance within your team
The Process in Theory
- please look at the external links
The Process in Practice
- the structure of the process can be described by 3 phases in 7 steps (extracted from the process of the web-instrument easy-mind respectively from the online-manual)
- For demonstration the method the choosed example is based only at:
- 3 criteria
2 alternatives
First Phase: Collect & Input Data
- for your decision making process in 4 steps
Formulate Your Question
- (1) what is the real question and goal for Your decision ?
-
The People
- (2) which team-members are integrated at Your round table for making decision together ?
-
Your Aspects and Criteria
- (3) which criteria are really important for Your question ?
-
Your proposals for solution and alternatives
- (4) Which possible alternatives You take into consideration sincerely ?
-
Second Phase: Compare & Evaluate Data
- for your decision making process in 2 steps
Criterion by Criterion
- (5) compare & evaluate - which criterion is more important, if you compare to the other: 1 or 2 ?
-
- by slider the method compares each criteria to each other criteria for building a ranking (7) in percent for them.
- 1 by 2
2 by 3
2 by 3
- For evaluating there is a scale with a spectrum of scores from 1 to 9
Alternative by Criterion
- (6) compare & evaluate - which alternative does match more to that criterion: A or B ?
-
- by slider the method compares each alternative to each other alternative
for building a ranking (7) in percent for all alternatives
- A by B
- for every criteria 1, 2, 3
- For evaluating there is a scale with a spectrum of scores from 1 to 9
Third Phase: Data Interpretation
- of Your inputs + evaluates
Your Solution
- (7) answer of Your question
- which weights have Your alternatives and criteria
- the weights of scores Your criteria in comparison to each other. combined by the evalutions in step (5)
-
- the weights indicate Your alternatives' how good do fit to a single criterion or match it. combined based on Your evalutions in step (6) bzw. (5)
-
- factors of inconsistency of Your evalutions of criteria and alternatives
- the AHP do measuring the logic of all your evaluations to each other by the inconsistency factor. By the way You have a statement about the quality of your combined solution and decision.
- eliminating contradictions in Your evaluations of the criteria and alternatives
- The lower your inconsistency factor is, the more conclusively is your evaluations and thea have fewer contradictions in itself. to be able to represent a contradiction at all, you need at least three different evaluations = scores, which You need consulting
- test Your criterions - do remain your solution in stable ?
-
- change step by step the percentage of Your criteria and observe the effects on the ranking of Your alternatives
- check Your alternatives - how stable is the ranking ?
- Check for each criteria, if the calculated ranking of Your alternatives looks stable to You. Therefore check the distance between the blue vertical line (criteria) and intersections between the red lines (alternatives).
- for criteria 1
-
- The ranking of Your alternatives is relative stable!
- The distance to the next intersection is more then 20 Percentpoints.
- Only if You modify Your evaluation a lot and Your Criteria weight changes from 29.7 by an amount of 26.7 percentagepoints to 56.4 rank reversal does occure.
- for criteria 2
-
- The ranking of Your alternatives is absolut stable !
- There are no relevant intersections. Modifications of Your evaluations will not cause a rank reversal.
- for criteria 3
-
- The ranking of Your alternatives is relative stable!
- The distance to the next intersection is more then 20 Percentpoints.
- Only if You modify Your evaluation a lot and Your Criteria weight changes from 61.8 by an amount of 32.5 percentagepoints to 29.3 rank reversal does occure.
External links
- easy-mind
php-based web-instrument. support online decision making. using for free , also for beginners with a simple, intuitiv surface by slider
- Web-HIPRE
java-based web-version of the HIPRE 3+ software for decision analytic problem structuring, multicriteria evaluation and prioritization
- AHP-introduction
Dr. Oliver Meixner university of Wien (54 german pages formatted in PDF)
"Der Analytische Hierachieprozeß", a very easy understanding summery of the mathematic theory
- An illustrated guide
Dr. Oliver Meixner university of Wien (20 english pages formatted in PDF)
"Analytic Hierarchy Process", a very easy understanding summery of the mathematic theory
