Weighted scoring is a prioritisation framework designed to help you decide how to prioritize features and other initiatives on your product roadmap. With this framework, initiatives are scored according to a set of common criteria on a cost-versus-benefits basis and then ranked by their final scores.
Selecting and Implementing a Solution and on In this section we split the chapter into two key areas
- Selecting a Solution
- Preventive Action Planning (see Evaluation, Follow Up and Business Development for more information on developing the Opportunity)
Selecting a Solution
This method of generating alternative solutions and selecting the best option it puts rigour into the decision making and evaluation processes. You will find it useful in any situation where you have to make a choice:
- Selecting a supplier for telecommunication equipment
- Selecting the best software package
- Identifying the best candidate for a job
- Choosing a car, house or holiday etc
It will provide formal and auditable documentation of the final choice. You and your colleagues will show how you made your decision, what objectives and criteria you evaluated and the process you used.
The ultimate objective is to provide the best-balanced choice between numerous, seemingly similar, alternatives. The best-balanced choice is reached via a stepped approach through the following phases:
- Decision Objectives: Establish a decision objective; confirm the level and produce a decision statement.
- Select Criteria: To evaluate options, you need to compare against something. Formulate selection criteria against which the alternatives can be screened.
- Compare Alternatives: Screen the alternatives through the selection criteria and eliminate those that don’t give a satisfactory performance. This helps reduce the number,
- Evaluate Risk: Evaluate the risks that are attached to each of the remaining options.
The Decision Objective
A decision objective is written in terms of the end result:
- “To install a Trade Capture system,
- “To select which activities to stop in a business”
- “To select a means of transport”
- “To choose a four-seat car with 4 wheel drive and 0-60 under six seconds”
Make your decision objective “tight”. Be specific on the wording. A good description will always be “SMART”. The tighter you make your objective the easier it will be to evaluate the options. The objective will also help you confirm that the right selection has been made – in time to do something about it!
For example, if the decision has been made “to select an email services provider the team will be able to audit this objective:
- Is an email service needed?
- Should we not be looking at a corporate Intranet with full voice, data and imaging system?
It is all about getting the level right and ensuring that you are comparing apples with apples.
Levels
For example, if you were trying to decide which car to buy, you would review whether the decision ‘car’ was itself correct. (You could use public transport, or taxis, or buy a motorbike etc.).
A decision objective at the right level, using the correct modifies (rent as opposed to buying) will ensure that you eliminate many irrelevant alternatives.
Selection Criteria
Any choice between similar alternatives is likely to be made on a subjective basis. You can do this by weighing the good and bad points of each alternative against those of the others You will eventually arrive at the solution, which seems to be the best fit. By rationalising the selection criteria you can both eliminate and discriminate between rival choices.
Musts and Wants
Selection criteria are split into two categories termed “Musts and “Wants.”
Musts are mandatory, measurable and non-negotiable; any criteria which do not meet those requirements is a Desirable or Want (could have, should have v must have). To use the purchasing of a car as an example again, you selection criteria might be:
Four doors, diesel engine, sunroof, alloy wheels, tinted glass, cost less than £60,000 and mpg of 35.
The following meet the Must criteria (measurable, non-negotiable, and mandatory)
Must CRITERIA
- Four doors,
- Diesel engine,
- Cost less than £60,000,
- 35 combined MPG
Leaving the other criteria as the Wants:
- Sunroof,
- Bose sound system,
- Alloy wheels,
- Tinted glass.
Somebody else may choose the following, but”
- What is meant by tinted glass? What does a sunroof mean? is a panoramic?
- Four doors and a diesel engine are easy to say “yes” or “no” to.
The two other criteria may mean different things to different people.
An easy way to creating a good weighting is to compare each criterion against paired criteria.
At least one selection criterion should be assigned the value 10 so that it can act as the yardstick by which all other weights may be assigned.
A similar principle is applied to the scoring of the alternate choices. Scores are assigned in the range 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest.
Each selection criterion must have at least one candidate solution, which scores 10 (the best met)
The remaining task within this comparison of options is mathematical and obvious i.e. each candidate solution’s score against that selection criterion is multiplied by each selection criterion weight. The sum of these products for each candidate solution represents its position relative to all other candidates, and the highest total should be the candidate solution, which is the best fit to the requirements. Either set of Musts or Wants would be legitimate since each reflects an individual view.
The essence of Musts and Wants is that of negotiability:
Musts are totally non-negotiable. Wants or Wants are negotiable.
Compare Alternatives
Firstly, list the selection criteria, split into the Musts and Wants categories. The Musts are ‘scored’ first as yes or no- a Must is either present or it is not. Note that the Volvowagon would fail because of its lack of petrol engine! Those choices, which do not satisfy all Musts, are eliminated. The remaining candidates move on, here the alternatives are ‘scored’ according to how well you feel that each satisfies its Desirable or Want.
Weights should be assigned in the range 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest possible score. An easy way to creating a good weighting is to compare each criterion against paired criteria.
Preventive Action Planning
Preventative action planning is about getting things right the first time. It involves the review of your plan: the identification of potential problems and causes.
For the causes that are likely to happen and that may affect your business, you identify preventive actions to stop them happening and contingent actions to help you reduce the negative effects. The process is as follows:
- Success Statement: Begin with a success statement
- Plan: Develop a plan and list the steps in time order. Identify the critical steps.
- High-Risk Areas: Using Risk Management Identify the high-risk areas by looking at the critical areas for potential problems. Risk = probability, detectability and seriousness of each potential problem.
- Prevent: Anticipate the likely causes of each potential problem occurring. Preventive actions reduce the probability of a problem occurring.
- Protect: Protect against the effects of the problem with contingent actions. Each action will need a trigger.
- Modify Plan: Take the original plan and modify it by inserting, the best selection of preventive and contingent actions. These should reduce the potential risk of implementing a new application or change.
You should not recommend and implement a solution before you have implemented the “Preventative Action Plan
Solution Selection and implementation
Summary
This method of combining decision making with elementary risk analysis will ensure that you use a common approach to selecting options and clarifying recommendations. The process can be used in any situation during the decision making cycle. It ensures that:
- The reason for making the decision is clear and understood,
- Alternatives are considered and compared,
- Risks are evaluated and managed.
The best and final choice is made after you review the degree of risk in each alternative and judge whether or not you are prepared to take that risk. The best-balanced choice is the option that performs best against the selection criteria and the amount of risk you are willing to accept.