Generating objectives and hierarchies

Summary Rational decision making requires a clear understanding of the underlying objectives. Comprehension of objectives also helps improve recognizing better alternatives and attractive decision opportunities. Attempting to gain clarity with respect to personal objectives can be mentally demanding. However, there are a number of indicators that can be focused on and harnessed: shortcomings in the status quo, comparison of alternatives, strategic goals, external guidelines and the objectives of other people that are involved. Fundamental objectives have to be distinguished from means objectives. Only objectives that are fundamental in the given decision context should be considered for an evaluation of the alternatives. The system of (fundamental) objectives which are relevant in a given decision situation should fulfill a number of requirements: completeness, lack of redundancies, measurability, independence and conciseness. The hierarchical structuring of the (fundamental) objectives supports the fulfillment of the requirements mentioned in point 4. For each (fundamental) objective used in the evaluation of the alternatives, an objective variable (= attribute) has to be determined. Unfortunately, artificial and proxy attributes have to be used instead of natural attributes quite often. Attributes should have the following desirable properties: direct, operational, understandable, comprehensive and unambiguous.