Strategic Action Plan - International Environmental Technology Centre

Strategic Action Plan Report
In most cases, the weighted sum method can provide satisfactory results. However, for more
complicated and/or high value decisions, it is recommended that software tools like Expert Choice
based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (see Box 3) be used.
Box 3: Analytic Hierarchy Process for Multi-criteria Decision Making
In situations where alternatives cannot be objectively assessed with ease and need a subjective or expert
opinion based approach, weighted sum technique could pose some hurdles in decision making. In such
cases one can resort to other and more complex techniques under what is collectively known as ‘Multi
Criteria Decision Making’ Approaches. Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) is often a challenging
process and different techniques have been tried out till date. One such popular technique is Analytical
Hierarchy Process (AHP).
While making decisions involving a variety of tangible and intangible strategic goals, managing
conflicting stakeholders, or selecting from among dozens of alternative technology options, the
Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) can help managers and developers combine all of this information
and make informed decisions.
One of the reasons for AHP’s popularity is that it derives (presents) preference information from (to)
the decision-makers in a manner that they find easy to understand.
AHP is a systematic and structured procedure to construct and represent the elements of a problem in
a hierarchy format. The basic rationale of AHP is organized by breaking down of the problem into
smaller constituent parts at different levels. Decision-makers are guided through a series of pair wise
comparison judgments to reveal the relative impact, or priority of the elements (e.g., criteria,
alternatives) in the hierarchy. These judgments in turn are transformed to ratio-scale numbers
representing relative weights of the elements at a certain level of the hierarchy, as well as globally.
The hierarchy in AHP is often constructed from the top (goals from the management standpoint, e.g.,
environmentally-sound development), through intermediate levels (criteria on which subsequent levels
depend, e.g., physical, chemical, biological, and socio-economic criteria) to the lowest level (usually a set
of alternatives, possible actions). AHP allows the combination of group judgments by taking the
geometric mean of single judgments.
One of the software applications that use the AHP technique to carry out MCDM is ‘Expert Choice’
(available at http://www.expertchoice.com).
Expert Choice provides an interface that guides the stakeholder group through the process of:
• Structuring decision into objectives and alternatives
• Measuring objectives and alternatives using pair-wise comparisons
• Synthesizing objective and subjective inputs to arrive at a prioritized list of alternatives thus
eliminating the need for complicated mathematical / numerical calculations
• Incorporating sensitivity analysis and expert opinions to overcome subjectivity
• Reporting decisions with a documentation mechanism
• Allowing participatory assessment by stakeholders
Note that expertise in the use of the software is a prerequisite, in addition to the licensing fees.
ISWM Plan for Pune
XXV