Learning Resources
Lesson
Decision-making
In Part 1, you identified a number of ideas as possible design activities. It is now time to assess those ideas. Before you can assess them, you need to develop criteria, or standard items to compare the ideas with.
Criteria
Criteria can include
- Interesting to do
- Worth doing
- There is enough time
- The cost is reasonable
- Resources are available
- I can find the info I need
- I can find people who can help
Assessing the possible design activities
When criteria are used to assess a number of different ideas, it is important to assign a value to them. Suppose, for example, each item in the list above has a total possible value of 5 points, and you have 5 different ideas as possible design activities. The table below indicates how you would use the criteria to assess the ideas.
Checklist for selecting an opportunity/problem to develop |
|||||
Criteria |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Interesting to do | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 2 |
| Worth doing | 5 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 |
| There is enough time | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
| The cost is reasonable | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 3 |
| Resources are available | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| I can find the info I need | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| I can find people who can help | 5 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 |
Total Value |
27 | 24 | 17 | 30 | 22 |
Making a decision
Now that the ideas are assessed, it is decision-making time. Do you go with the idea that scored the highest? Do you take other tings into consideration? For example, idea 4 seems to be the best one since it has the highest score. Suppose, however, that you really don't know too much about the technological systems required for to develop this solution. The lack of people to help may be a major problem. You have to use the scores as a starting point, and then look more closely at the practical issues of doing the work.
Justifying your decision
When you have made a decision, it is important to give a rationale. The rational is simply a statement of why you made this decision. When you engage in design, it is always important to to think about why you made decisions.
Activity
Use the appropriate pages of your Design Portfolio, Stage 1 Part 2, to document the following activities as you complete them
Activity
Actions you need to take
Develop criteria to asses your ideas, and review them with your teacher
Review the information in the lesson. Also review the list of sample criteria already entered in the portfolio.
Make a list of things you feel are important to determine when you review your ideas for a design activity
Refine your list and give a one or two word label for each item. These are you criteria.
Open your designportfolio in FrontPage and open page d1-part2.htm. It is in the the designstage1 folder.
Enter the new criteria in the decision making grid in the portfolio. Delete any of the existing ones you will not be using.
Not enough rows to hold all your criteria? Seriously consider reducing them. If you need more rows, you can do this
Important Note The table was made to assess 5 ideas. If you have more than 5, finish entering you criteria in the table and then you will need to make a copy of the table and place it below the existing one. Use the additional table for the extra ideas.
Assess each idea
You can do this two ways
start with the first criteria and go across the columns and put a score in for each idea, then repeat with the remaining criteria
start with idea 1 and go down the rows, scoring it on each criteria, then repeat for the remaining ideas
Total the Scores
Total the scores in each column and enter the totals in the total value row
Decide which idea you will work with
This may or may not be obvious. While it is reasonable to assume that the idea that scored highest is the one you should work on, you need to look at how you scored specific criteria. For example, if you said that resources are not available for a particular project, yet it scored highest overall, then you still have to conclude that it is not a project you can undertake.
When you've made your decision, enter it in the appropriate location (replace Write your decision here) below the table
Give a rational for your decision
Making the decision required consideration of the criteria and issues related to developing the idea into a full solution. It is these considerations, and the reasons for your choice that you should be recording (replace Write a brief description of why you made this choice with your info).
Publish changes
Publish your changes to the web server
Notify instructor
Notify your instructor when you are finished publishing (email or using another agreed on method)