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Unit Converter XLPowerBook | AHP Decision Aid XLPowerBook |
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The SpreadsheetWorld AHP Decision Aid xlPowerBook is based on a powerful and flexible decision making process to help people set priorities and make the best decision when both qualitative and quantitative aspects of a decision need to be considered. By reducing complex decisions to a series of one-on-one comparisons, then synthesizing the results, AHP not only helps decision makers arrive at the best decision, but also provides a clear rationale that it is the best. Designed to reflect the way people actually think, AHP was developed in the 1970’s by Dr. Thomas Saaty, while he was a professor at the Wharton School of Business, and continues to be the most highly regarded and widely used decision-making theory.
A typical set-up for this method uses a matrix to organize the variables and enter the pairwise comparison data. Some mathematical manipulations are performed on the data with the result being a distribution of the importance percentage among the variables. The typical spreadsheet is difficult for novice users to understand and use (for example; due to the arrangement of the variables if one is more important than the other you would enter either a 9 or 1/9 depending upon which variable was on the horizontal axis and which was on the vertical axis - this is very confusing for the novice user and oftentimes is improperly entered). My workbook does two things; 1) Instead of entering raw numerical data I have created a slider system to allow the user to drag and drop the relative priority between the two variables, and 2) I placed the math in a hidden worksheet so that the user doesn't get confused. The output is a graph page showing the relative priority bars and actual value of the allocation. The benefit of the method is that often people have unconscious biases on what they believe a prioritization ranking should be, and when presented with a list of items they will allocate their prioritization percentages to achieve the "expected" result. However, when presented with two variables, and asked to choose if one is more important than the other, and if so by how much on a scale, once all the pair-wise comparison data is mathematically analyzed, there are oftentimes "aha!" revelations.AHP is often done in product market research (I use it as part of the QFD process), but I have applied it in many scenarios where multiple variables are involved which have different levels of importance, in order to develop a rational distribution of that importance. |
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