A QUICK EXAMPLE OF PRIORITIES

Although Priorities is designed for use in the workplace, a simple domestic issue can illustrate how it works. The example shows just one way to use Priorities, since there are many possible uses and ways through this highly flexible program.

View the live demo of this example

ISSUE :

A family (Mr. Brown, Mrs. Brown & Bobby Brown) is deciding where to go on holiday.

ISSUE & OPTIONS

You register the issue, holidays, and the options you're considering say : Arctic, England, France, skiing, USA.

OBJECTIVES & DECIDERS

You register your objective (or objectives), say : "Happy Holidays", and the people (or deciders) involved: Mr brown, Mrs Brown & Bobby Brown.

DECIDERS INFLUENCES

You decide their relative influence on the decision. The simplest way to do this is to intuitively enter a percentage influence. Here Mr. Brown and Mrs. Brown each have 40% and Bobby Brown 20%.

REGISTERING THE DECIDERS.

OPTION WEIGHTS

Each person (decider) runs through the options deciding which is more important than which. In this case, the family members each make judgements on the 5 options. Again, the simplest way to do this is to enter percentages directly. But another method, judgement analysis, gives you more reliable results.

You compare one option with another, then decide which is most important. Take two options ARCTIC versus ENGLAND for comparison. Suppose you decide you very significantly prefer to holiday in ENGLAND rather than the ARCTIC. You indicate this by moving the pointer on the screen towards ENGLAND. The more you prefer ENGLAND by comparison to the ARCTIC, the nearer you move the pointer towards ENGLAND away from ARCTIC.

If you move the pointer 4 or 5 places towards ENGLAND, this indicates that the option of a holiday in ENGLAND is significantly more preferable (or has 5 times more priority) than the option of an arctic holiday. If you want, you can visualise the scale for comparison as follows:

Then compare the other options England versus France, followed by France versus Skiing, and so on until you've recorded your judgements on a sample of all the options, pair by pair.

DECIDING OPTION PRIORITIES

The Priorities program builds up valid option weights from your judgements or comparisons.

A DECIDER'S OPTION WEIGHTS
(For one Objective )

A DECIDER'S MAIN INCONSISTENCY

The deciders can then revise their Judgements till they achieve an acceptable decision standard.

The father thought both USA and SKIING 7 times more importan than ARCTIC. BUT though USA 8 times more important than SKIING.

Logically he should have made USA equally important as SKIING.