Decision Matrix

Step 1: List options as rows

Step 2: Determine important attributes and add/remove columns, as appropriate
Step 3: Assign relative weights to each attribute in row 9 (i.e. an 8 would be twice as important as a 4)
Step 4: Assign objective 0-100 scores for how option satisfies each attribute (best to do this on an attribute-by-attribute basis)
Step 5: Options with the higest scores should be considered

1 1 1 1 1 5
20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 100%
Option Attribute 1 Attribute 2 Attribute 3 Attribute 4 Attribute 5 Score
Option A 0
Option B 0
Option C 0
Option D 0
Option E 0

Notes:

Of the options youre considering, decide which attributes can be used to help make a decision. You can include as many attributes as necessary. For
example, if youre considering multiple vendors, you might use attributes like Cost, Reliability, Company Size, Expertise, Process Familiarity, etc. If youre
doing this as a group, make sure everyone agrees what the attribute means. Its often helpful to include a few more words, like: Process Familiarity how
well does the vendor understand the way we do things at our company?

For each attribute, assign a relative weight that is greater than zero. In this decision matrix, the range of numbers doesnt matter; its the relationship
between those numbers that matters. For example, if Cost is assigned a weight of 8 and Expertise is assigned a 4, youre saying that Cost is twice as
important as Expertise in your decision. Naturally, lower weights are less important than higher weights, and its okay if multiple attributes share the same
weight. In that case, youre saying that those attributes will be treated equally. In group situations, the discussion about the relative importance of these
attributes can be very enlightening, and its a fantastic way to build consensus.

List all of your options. In the example Ive been using, this would be the vendor names. Then, for each attribute, assign a score from 0-100 to each
option. I highly recommend scoring all options for an attribute before moving to the next attribute, because its much easier to imagine the attribute, then
score each option relative to one another. Of course, if you dont know all of your options yet, this cant be done (for example, if youre using this
technique to interview candidates for employment, you may need to score each attribute for the candidate while on the phone). Scores dont have to be
perfect, and 0 can mean bad/low confidence/not applicable/failure/etc., while 100 can mean great/high confidence/guaranteed/etc.

Ref: http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/archive/2008/07/20/my-decision-matrix.aspx

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