ChoiceAnalyst 4.1 - The Decision Maker's Organizer

We are constantly confronted with decisions like:

• Determining which expense to eliminate
• Picking amongst vacation options
• Prioritizing your Things to do List
• Choosing the right investment
• Deciding which job applicant to hire
• Selecting the right marketing options
• Picking a name for a baby, pet or product
• Deciding which car to purchase
• Analyzing Risk Management options
• Deciding on the right house to purchase
• Deciding which college to attend

Assume you have an important decision to make. It consists of several options with multiple criteria and of course you want to make the best choice.

Imagine having a software program that helps you organize your options then presents your data as a series of pairs. Your hardest decisions become simple. You choose which is better between a pair of choices based on one criterion and repeat the process for each criteria, then the overall best choice is mathematically calculated for you.

ChoiceAnalyst organizes your decision making process in many ways. Here are just a few:

• Complex decisions are streamlined and focused
• Alternatives with multiple criteria are thoroughly analyzed
• Consensus by a group is easily attained
• Decision models can be shared by e-mail, WAN or LAN
• The subjectivity in decision making is removed
• Weighting for each criterion reflects its relative importance
• Weighting for each decision maker reflects individual knowledge or experience
• There is a method for determining Criteria weighting when you aren't sure
• Reports can be generated to document the decision process
• "What-If" analysis is possible while analyzing the outcome
• And much more…

Let's look at just how simply a decision model can be built and analyzed with ChoiceAnalyst.

ChoiceAnalyst Features

ChoiceAnalyst provides a complete solution for creating and evaluating decision models, with an intuitive design and easy to use interface. Subsequent editing and re-evaluating the decision model is easy and straight-forward, simplifying the workflow process. Your decisions will come into much clearer focus with ChoiceAnalyst assisting you in the decision process no matter what the complexity of the decision involved.

ChoiceAnalyst has a number of features to assist you in the decision making process. How can ChoiceAnalyst help define and clarify the decisions you have to make today?

Easily Viewable Relationships Among the Data of the Decision Model

Table dialogs support an easy view of the decision components of the model. Entering data is simple and automated around an optional style of input. The use of MDI dialogs allows for seeing all aspects of a decision model when laid out on the screen.

Command Line Support

Command line operation parameters that will override the application options. The command operations enable existing XML decision model files to be used as input and output parameters. Command line options also support generating PDF report files from a decision model.

Use of the XML Open Standard

ChoiceAnalyst stores all model results in an XML file. Storing files as XML makes it very easy to adapt ChoiceAnalyst to internet and intranet applications. An XML file is one to one w/ a decision model therefore its easy to use these XML files as e-mail attachments. The XML schema generates a file with a very minimal footprint - ChoiceAnalyst model files take up minimum disk space and load into the ChoiceAnalyst GUI very quickly. An XML Schema is available by request.

On-Demand Reporting

Generate a permanent PDF file report and store your decisions away for later review or analysis years after the decision was made or use the PDF report for What-If analysis. Report options exist to customize the PDF report.

What-If Analysis

What-If analysis in ChoiceAnalyst can help answer the following questions:

• What-If I want to see only my decision independent of other decision makers
• What-If I relax or eliminate a given criterion or set of criteria.
• What-If I consider the comparison of one or more choices as a push or equivalent relative to each other.

What-If analysis is supported through paired preference comparison weights, decision maker weights, and criteria weights. What-If analysis is supported in various functions. First PDF Reports are generated for storage but also What-If analysis. What-if analysis is also supported dynamically within the program by showing multiple past calculations in separate MDI histogram calculation windows. Finally What-If analysis is supported by many applications running at the same time. The applications can share the same model file or use different model files to show different views of the decision model data. ChoiceAnalyst was designed to be flexible and allow for understanding the model through What-If Analysis before a final decision is made.

Options to Customize Look and Feel of ChoiceAnalyst

Extensive Application and Model options are provided to customize the look and feel or behavior of the program. Some of the options control generation of the PDF report, use of color, table cursor movements, control of the volume of paired preference output, and calculation profiles. Paired preferences user input can be reduced considerably by setting the model option parameters that control the number of choice pairs.

High Performance Numerical Computation

Calculate decision model solutions in the blink of an eye. ChoiceAnalyst uses an extremely fast algorithm to converge to a solution. When you're ready to compute a solution, use the hot key or toolbar to calculate the histogram solution in less than 1 second. No matter how complex the model, ChoiceAnalyst provides a very efficient and scaleable calculation engine.

Adaptable and Flexible Algorithm

A proprietary algorithm is completely encapsulated and provides a mathematically proven optimization algorithm.

Randomized paired preferences can be reduced thereby reducing the data entry requirements of the user in selecting a value along a scale for a 2-choice comparison (a single paired preference calculation)

Create and change weights of decision makers and criteria at any time. Finally control the histogram output to be either portrait or landscape.