What to do next: Using problem status to determine the course of action

Formal decision support tools are little used in engineering design. This paper explores the reasons for this and presents a method which is tailored to problems characterized by teams of stakeholders with inconsistent views who generate multiple alternatives and criteria, and who work to reach consensus. This method is especially designed to support activity when much of the information is qualitative, immature, and there is a diversity of views. The methodology assists the team in determining which alternative attributes to invest time in refining in their effort to reach consensus. The underlying mathematical structure (a Bayesian model of multi-attribute team decision making) is presented. This model supports team member belief about an alternative's ability to meet a criteria on two dimensions, knowledge and confidence. The methodology forces recording the rationale used to reach the final decision. A running example is used to explain the details.This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation under grant DDM-931996. The opinions in this paper are the authors' and do not reflect the position of the NSF or Oregon State University.