Chapter 5 Decision Management

Question 1

What is the purpose of the Decision Management Process?

Answer 1

The purpose for decision management is select the most beneficial course of project action where alternatives exist

Question 2

Inputs to the Decision Management Process?

Answer 2

Decision situation – decisions related to decision gates are taken on a pre-arranged schedule; other requests for a decision may arise fro any stakeholder and originate from any life cycle process.

Question 3

Controls and enablers for the decision management process?

Answer 3

Applicable Laws and regulations

Industry Standards Agreements

Project Procedures and Standards

Project Directives

Organization/Enterprise Policies, Procedures, and Standards – including guidelines and reporting mechanisms

Organization/Enterprise Infrastructure

Project infrastructure

Question 4

Activities in Decision Management process?

Answer 4

Plan and Define Decisions

Analyze the decision information

Track the Decision

Question 5

Common approaches to Decision management?

Answer 5

Take in consideration prior history

Involve all relevant persons in the decision-making activities

Maintain history of prior studies and decisions in order to not waste effort when old questions reappear.

Question 6

Skinners list of 10 principles of good decision making

Answer 6

1. Use a value creation lens for developing and evaluating opportunities
2. Clearly establish objectives and tradeoffs
3. Discover and frame the problem
4. Understand the business situation
5. Develop creative and unique alternatives
6. Identify experts and gather meaningful and reliable information
7. Embrace uncertainty as the catalyst of future performance
8. Avoid “analysis paralysis” situations
9. Use systematic thinking to connect current to future situations
10. Use dialogue to foster learning and clarity of action

Question 7

What is the Lean Manufacturing addition to skinner’s list of 10 principles for good decision making?

Answer 7

Delay commitment until the last possible moment (because it is easier to change a decision that is not made)

Question 8

Describe Decision Tree steps

Answer 8

Start on left with initial decision point and proceding to the right

Accurately represent each point where a decision is to be made and all possible consequence of decision

Assign probability of occurrence and outcome of each decision at each decision point

Expected value of winning contract is sum of expected value at the chance node times probability for each branch

Question 9

What are three other decision analysis techniques, aside from decision trees?

Answer 9

Sensitivity analysis - include relationships between the outcomes and their probabilities to find how “sensitive” a decision point is to numerical values

Value of information from methods - expending some effort in data analysis and modeling can ipmprve optimum expected value

Multi-attribute utilitiy analysis - develop equivalencies between dissimilar units of measure

Question 10

What are the outputs of the Decision Making Process?

Answer 10

Decision management strategy

Decision Report – approved decision documented and communicated along with rational, assumptions, constants, and supporting analysis

Question 11

Trade studies provide what features?

Answer 11

• A way to select one of two or more alternative approaches
• They support decisions in all stages of system development
• Address a wide range of problems
• Requirements can be traded against constraints
• Architecture features can be traded against dictated equipment or interface requirements
• Alternative functional or performance choices can be traded to determine optimal configuration

Question 12

What relationship do trade studies have to formal design reviews?

Answer 12

Make it easier to justify decisions if you have trade studies to back it up

Question 13

What are the three levels of formality for trade studies?

Answer 13

• Formal – use standardized methodology & formally document and reviewed with customer at a decision review
• Informal – same as formal but only recorded in Engineers notebook. No formal review.
• Mental

Question 14

What factors drive the choice of the level of trade performed?

Answer 14

• Consequences of project
• Complexity of issue
• Resources available

Question 15

What techniques are available for trade studies?

Answer 15

• Multiple attribute utility analysis (MAUA)
• Analytic Hierarch Process (AHP)
• Decision Trees
• Maximum expected utility (MEU)

Question 16

Key trade study activities

Answer 16

1. Frame the decision – clearly articulate the decision being made
2. Determine Screening and Selection Criteria – screening criteria (“must have”) identify the mandatory; selection criteria (“want to have”) discriminate between viable alternatives
3. Establish Weighting Values – reflect the relative importance of each criterion in the selection process (1..10 with 10 being most critical or the selection)
4. Identify Viable Alternatives - in general, between four and seven reasonable alternatives ensure viable ones are not overlooked.
5. Assign Measures of Merit and Evaluate Alternatives – assign measures to each criterion to see how well various alternatives satisfy the selected criteria. Weighted totals of weighted utilitiy values (performance x weight) are often used
6. Conduct Sensitivity analysis – vary the utility values and weights to see what would change. If the decision is based on an individual factor that score needs to be given extra care as it essentially determines the selection
7. Determine adverse consequences – use risk assessment methodology
8. Present the Results - formal report containing descrpitions and graphs
9. Prepare formal trade study reports – present at customer design review

Question 17

Risk may be decomposed into what types of risk?

Answer 17

• cost risk
• schedule risk
• programmatic risk
• performance risk

Question 18

What should be included in formal trade study reports?

Answer 18

• Summary description of each alternative solution
• Summary of the evaluation factors used
• Summary of the weighting values used and an explanation of why or how each were selected
• Detailed description of each alternative solution
• Summary description odf why or how the specific scores were assigned to each of the alternatives for each criteria
• Copy of the analysis spreadsheet if one was used
• Graphical display of the overal scores
• Graphical display of the weighted scores for each criterion for each of the alternatives