Multidimensional Decision-Making II - A logical approach for simplifying decisions (Part 1/2)

What is this article about?

The first chapter of this article discusses the importance of making effective decisions, especially when facing challenging decisions. This second (and last) chapter focus on demonstrating an approach to clarify challenging decisions.

The demonstrated model in this chapter aims to be a simplified representation of our natural decision-making process. This representation is explained by diving deep into the decision process and ends up providing a framework to use on challenging decisions. Framework on which is based the Decisioner tool.

This second chapter in divided in two parts:

Set-up of a decision framework: An introduction to the approach and explanation of the logical decision framework. (You are here)
Calculate and interpret choices outcome: An explanation on the usage of the logical decision framework to calculate choices outcomes of a decision.

All along this chapter will be used a specific decision example to illustrate in real-time the decision framework.

Chapter 2.1: A logical approach for simplifying decisions

1 - Logical translation overview

We can easily translate the decision-making challenge into a logical problem following a couple of steps.

First, let's put decision making in natural language: In front of a decision, we evaluate several aspects involved in this decision, and the importance of these aspects on what we want (to achieve). Having this, we evaluate each possibility’s impact on these involved **aspects (**of what we want). Then we chose the one in better accordance.

Now, let’s translate some main terms from this definition: If we extract the key words from this definition, we get 3 important notions:

What you want: Let's call it a shape (Think "shaping your life")
Aspect: Let's call that a dimension
Importance: Let's call this a weight

Finally, we can formulate the logical translation of decision making: If we use this vocabulary to translate the previous natural definition, the logical decision making process would look like this:

First, your shape should be represented in the main dimensions involved in the choice.
Then, you need to define a weight for each dimension, representing how much the shape is being represented by this particular dimension.
Finally, available choices should be compared against it. To do so, each choice’s impact should be evaluated on each of the dimensions, in accordance with the weights.

This probably sounds complex or confusing at first, and that’s expected. Let's decompose it, and perhaps give it another try later.

2 - Logical translation dive deep

For the next parts, let’s introduce a fictive decision-making situation. For the sake of the explanation simplicity, let's use a quite small decision example:

You're at the restaurant, it's time for dessert and you have to chose between a Fruit Salad or a Brownie, but the choice appears challenging….

Now, let’s build our decision!

2.1 - Finding the dimensions

The first step is to extract dimensions out of your shape. Only the most important ones that are involved in this choice. In natural language: You need to identify the most important aspects of what you want that are involved, and will be affected by the the decision.

“What you want” is a really important concept here: ideally it is any outcomes you’d like from the decision, but it could be any general thing that you’are attached to in life: a value, a goal, a feeling, etc. Whatever these things are, the ones that will be impacted by the decision should be considered as dimensions.

To represent this visually, let’s use a common multi-dimensional concept we are all familiar with: Space.

This picture, using a basic perspective, represents a geometrical Shape in 3 different dimensions. In that example, the actual shape would be what you want, represented by 3 different aspects (in 3 dimensions).

The dimension exercice here consists of finding the main aspects that are involved in the decision. Using single dimensions or dimension combinations, you can represent things you want (projections), that will depend or be impacted by the decision.

Probably it still sounds a little bit complex, so let’s go back to our concrete restaurant and dessert choice, and extract dimensions for this decision for a given simple shape.

The shape: Let’s say that what you want in the context of this decision scenario, is a tasteful experience, but with a low negative impact on your health goal.
Identifying dimensions: From the given shape and decision, we can easily identify a couple of main dimensions that are involved in this choice, let’s say:
- Dimension 1: The tasting experience (How much you will enjoy the taste)
- Dimension 2: The digestive transit (How smooth will it be to digest)
- Dimension 3: The global healthiness (How good are the nutriments for your body)

One last tip: When defining your dimensions, you should avoid having correlated dimensions. For example, if defining dimensions for a Job choice, having both "Perks" and "Salary" dimensions is redundant, because the salary is part of the perks. This could cause bias in your weights defined in the next step, and consequently the final result.

Now that we have identified dimensions, let’s weight them!

2.2 - Defining weights

We have identified main dimensions (concepts) involved in the decision, which matter to you, because your shape can be represented by them. But you should also be able to identify which one are more important than the others, and somehow “weight” them.

In order to do so, you need to define a coefficient number for each dimension, that we will call a weight. The value of the weight itself doesn’t matter, what matters is the relation between the different dimension weights.

Let’s go back to our example again. Now that we identified dimensions out of the decision and the shape, we can weight those dimensions. Let’s formulate how they would relate to each other in simple words:

Healthiness is something you’ve been trying to incorporate in your habit lately, but it is still hard for you to sacrifice the tasting experience that still remains 2 times more important.
However, the digestive transit is definitely more important than the global healthiness, you don’t want to suffer from it, so you consider it at least as much important as the tasting experience.

From these sentences we could weight the dimensions in several ways, for example:

Dimension 1 (Tasting experience): 20
Dimension 2 (Digestive transit): 25
Dimension 3 (Healthiness): 10

Again, actual values don’t matter, how they correlate does. In this case, we stated that taste “remains 2 times more important” than healthiness, which led us to chose weights of 20 and 10 respectively. But could have been 2 and 1, 50 and 25, etc.

If comparing all dimensions’ weight against each other makes sense, then you’re ready for the next and last step: Scoring the choices.

Continue reading

Now that we have weighted dimensions for our example, we actually have the framework to extract choices scores from it. But in order to do so, we’ll have to play little bit more with numbers.

This is what the second part of this chapter does, by diving deep into the choices impacts in order to calculate outcome scores and interpret them.

A logical approach for simplifying decisions - Part 2: Calculate and interpret choices outcome