Decision matrices require the reasons for our choices to be completely transparent and fully articulated.
Often the criteria will be allocated a weight commensurate with how important your team considers it to be, and this too can be very useful in getting team agreement on a particular decision.
Although a decision matrix can be used to decide amongst many options, it is recommended that because of the work involved, to limit the number of options to five or less.
The steps in the process of constructing a decision matrix are:
Step 1 Select the options to be assessed
Step 2 Select the criteria for assessment
Step 3 Simple scale: - worse than benchmark, 0 same as benchmark, + better than benchmark
Step 4 Draw up a matrix with options as column headings and criterion as row headings
Step 5 Complete the matrix by assessing each option against each criterion
Step 6 Add up scores
Step 7 Discuss outcomes
