From this presentation you will learn how to prioritize decision-making criteria with your team. You need to agree on criteria priorities in order to make decisions together.

1. How to prioritize your
decision-making criteria
The process for groups to agree on
criteria priorities

2. Decision making process
Goal Criteria Decision
Brainstorming
Structuring
PrioritizationYou are here

3. Why is criteria prioritization
important?
• Your criteria represent your business goals. If you use
the wrong criteria, you won’t achieve your goals.
• Making criteria explicit means that everyone has the
same view of the world and has a common
„language”.
• Not all criteria are equal. Some will be more
important than others and members of your team
will have different priorities. In order to make a
decision together, you need to build a consensus.

4. Are you ready for criteria
prioritization?
1. Team. Did you invite everyone who should
participate?
2. Goal. Is it clear, written down and approved by
your team?
3. Criteria. Does your team understand and
approve the selected criteria? This video will help
you brainstorm a list of criteria, if you have not
already done it.

5. Next slides…
1. How to prioritize your criteria list.
2. How to prioritize criteria hierarchy.
3. How software can help.

6. Part 1. How to prioritize criteria list
On the next few slides we will show you how to use
Analytic Hierarchy Process to prioritize you criteria
list.

7. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
• AHP can be used to discover the relative
importance of criteria.
• AHP has been researched over 40 years and is
tried and tested by many organizations since
1970s.
• It is based on pairwise comparisons…

8. Why pairwise comparisons
• Simplify the problem by replacing a complex
question about priorities with a set of simple
comparisons.
• Allow algorithm to check the consistency of your
priorities.
• Makes collaboration simple since each difference
of opinion can be resolved on the level of
comparison.

9. How it works
• Compare all criteria in pairs. Each comparison is
about indicating:
– more important criterion (from the 2 compared)
– level of preference (on a 9-point scale).
• Algorithms work out the overall priorities based on
these individual judgments.
• If you’re a math junkie, you can see how matrix
calculations and eigenvectors are used to calculate
your priorities.

10. How it works
Comparison More important Preference
Quality vs. Time
Quality vs. Social impact
Quality vs. Cost
Time vs. Social impact
Time vs. Cost
Social impact vs. Cost
You need to make these
judgments…

11. How it works
Comparison More important Preference
Quality vs. Time
Quality vs. Social impact
Quality vs. Cost
Time vs. Social impact
Time vs. Cost
Social impact vs. Cost
Indicate the more important
criterion (or say they are
equal)

12. How it works
Comparison More important Preference
Quality vs. Time
Quality vs. Social impact
Quality vs. Cost
Time vs. Social impact
Time vs. Cost
Social impact vs. Cost
Use a 9-point scale to
define the preference:
1 – Equal
3 – Moderate
5 – Strong
7 – Very Strong
9 – Extreme
2,4,6,8 – Intermediate

13. How it works
Comparison More important Preference
Quality vs. Time Quality 4 (Moderate+)
Quality vs. Social impact Quality 2 (Weak)
Quality vs. Cost Quality 5 (Strong)
Time vs. Social impact Time 2 (Weak)
Time vs. Cost Time 3 (Moderate)
Social impact vs. Cost None 1 (Equal)
This means that Quality is 4
times more important than
Time…

14. Results
Based on pairwise comparisons you can calculate
priorities. Calculations without dedicated software
might be very time consuming…

15. AHP for GROUP decisions
1. Ask each participant to make comparisons.
2. Review comparisons together. Identify and
discuss the differences of opinions.
3. Try to establish the common value for each
comparison.
4. Use average values to eliminate deadlocks.
For example…

16. AHP for GROUP decisions
Disagreement. Discuss
it and discover the
reason…

17. AHP for GROUP decisions
Or use the average
value to resolve
deadlock…

18. Part 2. How to prioritize criteria
hierarchy
Main criteria are usually not detailed enough to be
meaningful. E.g. Risk is often made up of
technology risk and organizational risk. These
individual elements of risk can be easily quantified.
On the next few slides we will show you how to
prioritize criteria organized into hierarchy…

19. Hierarchy = Multiple lists
Choose the
best projects
Break-even
score
Risk
Technology
Risk
Organizational
Risk
Strategic goal
1
Use pairwise
comparisons to
prioritize each branch
(as a list)…

20. Hierarchy = Multiple lists
Choose the
best projects
Break-even
score
Risk
Technology
Risk
Organizational
Risk
Strategic goal
1
List 1. Subcriteria of the
main goal. Prioritize
them in the context of
goal.

21. Hierarchy = Multiple lists
Choose the
best projects
Break-even
score
Risk
Technology
Risk
Organizational
Risk
Strategic goal
1
List 2. Subcriteria of Risk.
Prioritize them in the
context of risk.

22. Hierarchy = Multiple lists
Basic math will help you to calculate global
priorities (hierarchy) based on the local priorities
(on the lists).

23. Part 3. How software can help
• Automatically generates surveys based on the
hierarchy of criteria.
• Makes it easy for evaluators to complete surveys
while checking consistency.
• It helps the group to build the consensus quickly.
• It does the math and displays graphical results.

24. Next steps…
• See a step-by-step tutorial on how to use
TransparentChoice to prioritize your criteria.
• Schedule a live demo of TransparentChoice software
and we will guide you through the prioritization
process.
• Request our support for your first project. Get the
software and support needed to successfully
complete a pilot project.
• Get the free trial and try it by yourself.