Mau Model

Ever got stuck in making a decision after reading so many reviews and getting overwhelmed to the point that you almost didn’t buy a certain product?  There’s youtube, buyer reviews and endless commentary on some products that we cannot thoughtfully make a decision and could end up regretting our decision.  Here is a fairly simple process that can help you in your decision-making.

It’s called the multi-attribute utility model, also called a DAR (Decision Analysis Review) for those of you that come from a CMMI background.  This is something which I learned while I was in graduate school that uses mathematical analysis to evaluate and compare multiple products. Ultimately we want to know what is the best choice and this model focuses on you and really emphasizes what’s important to you so that you can assign scores to the alternative choices presented to you in a decision-making situation. While the experts who use this model often talk about high impact analysis, this can be practiced with a simple explanation and examples. This model is based on the assumption that there are apparent desires which are more important to you when selecting the best alternative, For example when looking for a new car you might like one over another based on characteristics such as price, reliability, fuel mileage, and space. The word attribute In the model is a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of something or someone. Essentially we rank the attributes of each product and determine What’s more important by weightage so that we can come up with the highest score and that score will ultimately tell us what is The best choice.

Lets see if we can run through an example real quick, for the sake of the exercise, I’m interested in buying a car and let’s assume that safety is my number 1 priority having recently become a father.  My other priorities in order are electronics, reliability, price and fuel Milage. I need the electronics package to be nice because I like doing things in the car like opening the sunroof, or connecting to my bluetooth or playing my favorite music.  Reliability is fairly important knowing that I want to get from one place to another.  While Price is important in the fact that I will be spending quite a bit, its not much of a burden since this car will get financed.  Fuel mileage is the least important to me because I use points from my credit card to get free gas.

 

Ranking

Attribute Ford Chevrolet Nissan Toyota
Safety
9
6
7
8
Electronics
6
7
8
9
Reliability
5
4
8
7
Price
8
9
6
5
Fuel Mileage
7
8
5
6

Weight

Attribute Weight Ford Chevrolet Nissan Toyota
Safety
75
675
450
525
600
Electronics
60
360
420
480
540
Reliability
50
250
200
400
350
Price
40
320
360
240
200
Fuel Mileage
30
210
240
150
180

Total

N/A
1815
1670
1795
1870

Content

N/A
2
4
3
1

Result: Toyota is the best choice

The first step is to rank the attribute or feature for each product.  I would limit my choices to a max of about 5.  I recommend 5 to 7 attributes to rank against.  When I do my rankings, I do not place the weight (priority) of the attribute next to the ranking, this is done to avoid any influence or pre-conceived notion of a certain brand or product.  You can find many excel templates online that have the weighted point and ranking feature all in one place. And you will also find templates that are broken down similar to how I ran through the model above here.  Start by ranking each attribute for each product 1 through 10.  Next, go to the second table and add weights to each attribute based on your priority.  Then, multiple each weight by the rank you gave to each product’s attribute. Lastly, sum the multiplied score for each product down the line and get your total.  Compare all results and the highest score is the best.

This is a very simple walkthrough of a decision-making model.  You may have way more complexities and your priorities may depend on budgets, number of users for a tool or ease of use.  If it’s an online tool, I recommend you get a free trial and use it based on a real-world problem, check with your team on their likes and dislikes.  If you have a large team, you can do a survey so that you can get a sense of what they are looking for.  Hmmm this gives me an idea, maybe I ought to write a Blog on how to properly conduct a survey. Anyhow, I hope this helps to shed some light on how you can use simple math to make a decision when you are stuck between choosing from several products.