Presenter: Pete Naylor

Presented at the 2017 DAAG Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.  In Session 4: Informational Value

Abstract: Behavioural science suggests that human nature favours decisions that satisfy (good enough is good?), not necessarily those that optimise. Often value is left on the table, particularly when risks & uncertainties are involved. More than fifty years ago an approach was born which helps to overcome this human limitation, namely Decision Risk Analysis (DRA), which helps us to optimise not just survive.

DRA is a structured process involving both facilitation and modelling that helps stakeholders optimise their decision making in the face of risks and uncertainties. Decisions come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and so does the best way to optimise the chosen value measures. This presentation introduced DRA and then focuses on one item in the toolkit known as Value of Information analysis (VOI). VOI is an acronym used by many, but maybe understood by few. The when, why and how of VOI will be explained, so hopefully, by the end of this talk the listeners will expand the ranks of the ‘few’.

If you are facing a number of decisions where outcomes are uncertain and there is an opportunity to acquire additional information which costs money
Keywords: influence diagram infldiag, VOI voivoc, decision tree dectree,

Download PDF