The Limits and Possibilities of Decision Models for Army Research and Development Project Selection

Résumé du livre

The case is made for applying Multicriteria Decision Models (MCDM) to the Army's research and development (R and D) project selection process. Given the recent changes in the international strategic environment and the resulting congressional emphasis on applied research short of production, the need for improved efficiency in selecting Army R and D projects is increasing. R and D project selection choices are non-trivial, with many stakeholders and multiple criteria for evaluating the alternatives to meet the organization's various objectives. Research on human cognition has revealed that typical decision making processes are inefficient for dealing with multi-criteria decision problems. MCDM such as the Analytic Hierarchy Process, Multiattribute Utility Theory, Goal Programming, And Graphical Techniques are designed to support these decisions by formulating logically supportable choices. Each of these four models is described and a summary of their strengths and weaknesses is presented.