ABSTRACT
A series of techniques have evolved from systems analysis and the behavioural sciences which attempt to deal in a quantitative manner with the impacts of value judgments and uncertainty on decision-making. Such uncertainty is seen to arise, in part, from the complex policy objectives and numerous alternative options often facing public sector decision makers. The typical goal of decision analyses is to help the decision maker rank-order project alternatives based on some measures of utility. Decision analysis is also called multi-attribute analysis, for the many attributes of policy problems, or multi-criteria analysis, for the multiple and often conflicting criteria by which alternative policy options are judged. Decision makers prepared for the possibilities of changing circumstance, setbacks, or new and potentially disturbing information, and used to weighing alternatives in terms of probable outcomes, will more likely have important management flexibility and the capacity to react to change.
