Decide with Confidence
The Future of Decision Making
Phænomind ® is an application that helps you to make decisions. Your decisions are calculated, documented and explained methodically and professionally.
Making decisions is often hard work. And despite computers, there aren't many tools for this kind of work. Because making decisions requires real intelligence. And that's exactly what computers struggle with.
DECIDE
Decisions are constantly calculated on your system independently and simultaneously. This enables mutual influencing of decisions in real time
CRITERIA
Your decision is based on criteria. You can enter these or have them suggested. Criteria have different values for each of your options or alternatives.
OPTIONS
Options or alternatives are the factors about which you must make a decision. Ask for additional options.
METHODS
Decisions can be made using different methods. Phænomind ® simultaneously uses utility analysis (CUA) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
Emotional & Technical
Our brain has two halves:
Science assigns emotions to the right side, social behavior and the famous “gut feeling” are said to be there. So the “e” in the symbol.
The left side is responsible for the “ratio”, i.e. for reason. There the scientist and the engineer think in numbers. So the “a” for the data.
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Quantitative determination of the optimal alternative
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Qualitative comparison of all options according to criteria
What remains for us?
The future of decision-making lies in the realization that we will have no choice but to decide.
Microsoft, whose rights we explicitly recognise, writes the following introduction when installing Windows 11 on the subject of its AI integration called Copilot:
With Copilot, you get personal insights and can make informed decisions!
That says it all. All we are left with are insights. How and why these come about is another matter. But we get them, and that’s something.
And then we can make “informed decisions.” Decisions at work, in our private lives, for our investments, and for everything else. However, Microsoft leaves open what is meant by “informed.”
We have the answer: Informed means that options or alternatives are listed. It means that the criteria for a decision are known. And that these criteria can also be quantified and reviewed for each option. Is it all that simple?
Not quite. There is still our gut feeling. AI leaves us with a strange feeling. But what does that mean for our use of these systems? And what decisions do we make based on these feelings?
For us, it is clear: options and criteria can be found and listed with the help of AI. Evaluations are also possible to a limited extent. But concerning weighting, our personal assessments come into play.
And when it comes to qualitative criteria such as creativity, sympathy, or quality, AI fails completely. Because these criteria can only be evaluated by humans.
Professional Decisions
Only if these five building blocks have been considered and all of them have been given content, one can speak of a professional decision:
1. Alternatives and/or Options
We need to note the difference between alternatives and options. The difference is that one alternative excludes the other alternative. This is not the case with options - at least theoretically, several options could be realized at the same time.
It is better to let the alternatives run under the term “options” - because all options can be alternatives, but not vice versa. The question of whether an option is an alternative remains open.
Alternatives and options may change. New alternatives and options may emerge, or existing ones may disappear. Decisions change as options change.
2. Criteria
Criteria are the characteristics of an option or alternative that we can see, measure or feel. In the case of cars, for example, this is the fuel consumption, when choosing a partner the appearance or when buying a house the price. Criteria apply to all options at the same time. If there are options for which a criterion does not exist, then these options cannot be directly compared with each other.
Criteria are a complex matter. It can happen that new criteria emerge and that existing criteria become unimportant. The quality of a decision can be judged on the basis of the selection of criteria used. The more meaningful criteria there are, the more certain a decision is to be correct in the end. Conversely, it can happen that a decision turns out to be wrong because an important criterion is missing.
3. Ratings
A rating describes the degree to which the criteria are met for all options. In the case of cars, for example, fuel economy can be specified as a criterion for each option.
Some ratings can be quantitatively expressed in concrete numbers. For example, the fuel consumption of a car can be measured in liters per 100 km. If no value can be given as a number, the rating can be classified on a graded scale of suitability. In science, a “Likert scale” is often used for this.
A criterion such as “design” cannot be evaluated quantitatively, so a different approach is used. A comparison of two options for a qualitative criterion (such as design) is called a “pairwise comparison” and is also considered a rating. For this criterion, the rating consists of levels such as “much better than…” or “slightly better than…”. - Between five and nine distinctions are used.
4. Weightings
Not all criteria are equally important in making a decision. Therefore, the criteria are “weighted”. This can be thought of as a prioritized list in which some criteria carry much more weight than the rest.
We assume that the selected criteria are in order of importance. This means that one criterion is more important than another - or at least equally important. The weighting of the criteria can be uniform, linearly increasing, quadratically increasing or exponential. Depending on the design, the less important criteria are placed further down the list.
5. Methods
There are several methods that can be used to make professional decisions. The term “professional” here means that the decision is calculated and documented in a comprehensible way. A pure “gut decision” is not professional in any way. This does not mean that a “gut feeling” cannot be taken into account.
There are two ways to calculate decisions.
An Cost Utility Analysis (CUA) is the simplest form of comparing alternatives based on criteria. For example, if you want to buy an item and are offered the same item at a higher and a lower price, you will prefer the item with the lower price. The options here are two vendors and the only criterion is price. This concept can be extended to other options and criteria. A simple Excel spreadsheet is a valid approach here.
Another method is called AHP. AHP stands for “Analytic Hierarchy Process” and takes a more nuanced approach. AHP is no longer about fixed values, but about “soft” values. “Soft criteria are criteria such as design, reputation, and reliability.
n practice, two options are compared. For each criterion, a decision can then be made as to which of the options is superior to the other in terms of the criterion and by how much.
Here it becomes clear that this is no longer an objective process. And that is the point. Here, two options or alternatives are compared and their characteristics are evaluated. This can happen in a circle and lead to contradictory statements. This method can make these contradictions visible and still work correctly.
