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Techniques
Decision Analysis
• Offers the flexibility of different levels of detail, which provides just enough
information for the respective audience.
• Formal modelling of the information held by the business may expose new
requirements as inconsistencies are identified.
.2 Limitations
• Following data modelling standards too rigorously may lead to models that are
unfamiliar to people without a background in IT.
• May extend across multiple functional areas of the organization, and so beyond
the business knowledge base of individual stakeholders.
10.16 Decision Analysis
10.16.1 Purpose
10.16.2 Description
Decision analysis formally assesses a problem and possible decisions in order to
determine the value of alternate outcomes under conditions of uncertainty.
Decision analysis examines and models the possible consequences of different
decisions about a given problem. A decision is the act of choosing a single course
of action from several uncertain outcomes with different values. The outcome
value may take different forms depending on the domain, but commonly include
financial value, scoring, or a relative ranking dependent on the approach and
evaluation criteria used by the business analyst.
Decisions are often difficult to assess when:
• the problem is poorly defined,
• the action leading to a desired outcome is not fully understood,
• the external factors affecting a decision are not fully understood, or
• the value of different outcomes is not understood or agreed upon by the
various stakeholders and does not allow for direct comparison.
Decision analysis helps business analysts evaluate different outcome values under
conditions of uncertainty or in highly complex situations. A variety of decision
analysis approaches are available. The appropriate approach depends on the level
of uncertainty, risk, quality of information, and available evaluation criteria.
Effective decision analysis requires an understanding of:
• the values, goals, and objectives that are relevant to the decision problem,
• the nature of the decision that must be made,
• the areas of uncertainty that affect the decision, and
• the consequences of each potential decision.
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