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FAQ
How easy is Priorities Now to use as a way of managing?

Priorities Now emulates natural processes that effective managers use to resolve issues and conflicts systematically. There are just five straightforward steps that are often completed in twenty minutes. Managers soon adapt Priorities Now to their own personal style so that it feels unique to their own particular needs and situation.

Can Priorities Now be undertaken without the computer program?

Managers can use Priorities Now without touching a computer, so long as there assistant/secretary types their views for them into the computer program.

The Judgement method requires the Priorities Now program to carry it out.

But it is fascinating to find that effective decision-makers who have developed their decision-making capabilities in depth by using Priorities Now many times on many issues, are eventually able to produce the same results without using the computer program. In other words Priorities Now functions as a self-development tool.

Why would effective managers need to use Priorities Now?

Effective managers are usually more interested in exploring and trying out proven decision tools than others. Even the most effective managers can be significantly inconsistent on complex issues, as they can demonstrate to themselves on Priorities Now. They treat their inconsistencies constructively as learning points, as prompts for new ways of reconceiving issues, of opening up ideas on new issues, and of exploring their own thinking.

Decisions on significant issues are often complex. Decision-maker takes into account their own and their colleagues’ divergent priorities and varied views on several options in the light of several factors recognising that some carry more weight than others. They balance pros and cons of each possible option, and evaluate the implications of each objective. Somehow everything has to be reconciled in a short already over-full period. All too often managers have to decide all too quickly. Just assembling people for a meeting usually take more time than can be spared. Whereas a team decision can be made with Priorities Now without any meeting. The managers negotiate via the program.

Even if managers do not use Priorities Now to aid their own decisions, they may well use the program to aid delegation of their decisions, or to ensure their staff take appropriate objectives/criteria fully into account in delegated decisions.

Do mediocre managers produce mediocre results with this program?

Although the results of Priorities Now are in principle only as effective as the decision makers themselves, ‘mediocre’ managers may check their reasoning for inconsistencies. These they can then correct until they achieve an adequate decision standard as indicated by the program. They may check their judgements against those of others, which may prompt some self-questioning and adaptation. One of the main uses of Priorities Now is as a training tool to educate your intuition, illuminate and validate your thinking, reveal new insights, and enhance decision skills. The speed of Priorities Now encourages more reasoned analysis of more variables than many managers usually consider.

What is the difference between the intuition and judgement methods?

Some people like to think of themselves as primarily intuitive, and prefer the intuitive method. Whereas others like to think of themselves as primarily rational, and tend to prefer the Judgement method. 

The intuition method involves percentage weighting. The Judgement method involves paired comparisons, and indicates where you are inconsistent, and also on what is your decision standard. It is the more reliable valid method.

Most managers work within severe constraints. doesn’t this limit the usefulness of Priorities Now?

If there are so many constraints that the manager has no choice, then the issue is predetermined. The manager would then use Priorities Now to decide how best to implement the decision someone else has made.

We really have unfettered freedom of action of any issue (even if we are a President). It is also rare for all significant issue on our agenda to be completely predetermined. The area between complete freedom and complete determination is our area of discretion as managers. The extend of our discretion varies from issue to issue:

Completely Determined Discretion Complete Freedom

Most managers have more choice on most issues than they are aware. There choice is the essence of their discretion, which is the essence of their work.

People can only be said to be managers if they have some choice.

Priorities Now is relevant to the manager’s areas of discretion and freedom of choice.

Does Priorities Now open up debate and discussion?

When decision makers are aware that reliable team priorities are immediately available with Priorities Now at any point of discussion, this stimulates more wide ranging and improved discussion of issues and options and objectives. There are four reasons for this.

First, decision makers know that closure is quickly achievable in a way that takes account of their own individual priorities. This reduces their disinclinations to debate options that often rise when there is no foreseeable boundary or termination point to the discussion.

Second, each decision maker knows that his/her own individual priorities will form part of the equation from which the team priorities scale is calculated. This reduces the disinclination to debate options that often arises when there is no evident way in which individual views can be seen to form part of the team decision short of total victory.

Third, a team view is initially specified in the form of a team priority scale. Each individual decision-maker may compare this with his/her own individual priority scale. This provides the agenda for a sharply focused debate on relevant contentious issues, while simultaneously saving irrelevant discussion time on points which are commonly agreed matters. Knowledge of the potential state of consensus facilitates the consensus building in a team.

Fourth, the process of focusing, reviewing and negotiating team priorities is further facilitated by the specific conflicts on option priorities pinpointed by the Priorities Now reliability checks.

What is Priorities Now not appropriately used for? What is its range of convenience?

Although Priorities Now is often used on courses on human interaction and team dynamics, it does not of itself deal with socio-emotional aspects of decision making in socio-emotional terms. However it can of course be focused on socio-emotional issues, problems and factors. Again, although Priorities Now is used for resolving conflicts between disputants, for deciding relative powers of decision makers, for systematically exploring how organisational politics effect decisions, and for planning change in the face of resistance, the program does not directly handle the organisational politics of decision making.

Is Priorities Now relevant to all organisations?

All organisations are unique, with distinctive local needs, requirements and peculiarities. But though the issues, options and objectives may differ from organisation to organisation, still more the procedures and style of decision-making, the essential fundamental form of problem-solving and reasoning is similar for most humans in most (perhaps all) organisations.

Priorities Now has been developed as a fundamental approach to tackling the fundamental issues, with optional extras to enable it flexibly to handle the most diverse local needs and requirements of organisations.

Though no two organisations (or come to that no two teams of decision-makers) ever use it in quite the same way, Priorities Now is generally applicable. For the basic system can be used adaptively within any existing decision-making procedures. It is also used to compensate for limitations in other decision techniques – for example management by objectives, decision analysis, repertory grid, network analysis etc.

How can you test whether decision-makers actually use the results of Priorities Now?

The test is simple. The concordance between the priorities derived from Priorities Now and those actually implemented (as measured by Kendall and factor analysis tests) measures the extent to which the decisions were implemented in practice.

However, the decisions which emerge from Priorities Now may be treated as recommendations rather than as final solutions. Indeed, they remain recommendations until actually promulgated by the accountable decision-makers, and remain only ‘sanctioned decisions’ thereafter until the priorities are actually implemented in practice.

The conflicts between priorities actually implemented and those planned, as revealed by Priorities Now, provide important feedback to decision-makers. This feedback typically casts light on divergences between the views of Priorities Now users and those of key organisational decision-makers, on criteria which have not been adequately taken into account by Priorities Now users, on the disjunctions between their priorities and their objectives, and particularly on their assessment of the criteria of achievability in respect of the issue concerned. To re-run Priorities Now on past decisions provides useful training.

Reliability of Priorities Now

How reliable are individual decisions made with Priorities Now?

There are three ways of checking reliability – direct reliability measures, decision-making behavior, and empirical tests.

Users of Priorities Now may check the reliability for themselves using the built-in reliability checks in the judgement analysis method. These include measures of consistency, coherence, comprehensibility, concordance of results obtained from different decision methods, stabilisation of judgements over time, and progressive attainment of consistency through revision of inconsistent judgements.

One necessary check on the reliability of the decision-maker’s judgements is internal consistency. This is measured by the trace index with tabulated test statistics and empirical standard to evaluate consistency scores.

The decision-maker’s internal coherence of judgement is also tested. Coherence is a stronger measure of reliability. The decision-maker’s initial priority scale of options is elicited from the problem-solving process. His/her composite priority scale of options is elicited from the policy-in-practice process. This initial scale is compared with the composite priority scale. A measure of the decision-maker’s coherence is given by the degree of concordance between the two priority scales. To the extent the initial and the composite scale correspond, this provides evidence that the decision-maker was internally consistent in rating options, in implicit application of the criteria in rating options, in rating criteria, and in explicit application of each criterion in turn to his/her rated options. Decision-makers who are consistently consistent in an issue tend also to be consistently coherent.

The decision-maker’s internal ‘comprehensibility’ of judgement is tested. Comprehensibility is a stronger measure of reliability. Two different sets of options are produced which are inter-translatable. For example, one set of options may refer to stimuli (e.g. market or community demands). Another set of options may refer to responses (e.g. organisational supply of products or services). The decision-maker’s priority scales for both sets of options are elicited. The decision-maker’s comprehensibility is measured by the concordance between the two scales. Decision-makers who are consistently comprehensible in an issue area also tend to be consistent and coherent.

Decision-makers may check that they obtain the same results when using different decision-methods in Priorities Now. Consistent decision-makers tend to obtain the same results whether judgement analysis, magnitude estimation, eigenvector methods, fuzzy scaling, walker scaling, Thurstone scaling, outranking or social judgement methods are used. Of these methods, only judgement analysis provides valid evidence of the decision-maker’s consistency such as would allow the construction of a valid sample of results for such cross-method checks for reliability.

Decision-makers’ interactions with Priorities Now also provide confirmation of reliability. Once a decision-maker’s consistent judgements have stabilised on an issue and he/she is satisfied with the results, they then tend to remain the same to within + or –5% around the mean over subsequent iterations unless new objectives are introduced.

A further check is provided by the tendency of normally consistent decision-makers to revaluate options in the direction of increased consistency and coherence, after they have considered inconsistencies pinpointed in the Priorities Now results. These results may be checked against the decision-maker’s intuitive post-exercise rank-ordering or rating of all the options, using the Kendall and factor analysis tests to obtain a concordance measure of both rankings and weightings. These tests, using the decision-maker’s post-hoc (‘analysed’) intuitions of overall rank-order and weightings, provide a check on the plausibility of the judgements elicited. Results derived from ranking and rating scales progressively approximate to results derived from paired-comparison scales over successive iterations.

The decision-maker’s results from use of the method also conform to the standard basic requirements of uniqueness and invariance, provided he/she is consistent. A decision-maker’s priorities and objectives weights, if consistent, are unique (within a given tolerance). Decision-makers cannot make two significantly different sets of consistent choices and come out with the same priorities or weights. Their priorities are also invariant (within a given tolerance). It would take a large shift in a decision-maker’s initially consistent choices for significantly different weights to emerge without subsequent inconsistency.

In addition to these built-in reliability checks within Priorities Now, the reliability of results may be checked by decision-makers’ behavior after using the program. Decision-makers’ subsequent decision behavior may be checked against their judgements made with Priorities Now. In controlled situations such as those provided by certain management games, consistent decision-makers tend to behave in accordance with the stabilised decisions they reach with judgement analysis. The evidence that this holds for real-life management is beginning to accumulate. This latter evidence introduces empirical testing for reliability.

Our own tests have confirmed Saaty’s findings of the reliability of judgement analysis when applied to judgements which can be subsequently checked against physical measurements (e.g. for distances, weights, etc). In principle, the method should be equally reliable for less verifiable judgements.

Empirical tests for reliability of decisions made using judgement analysis can be undertaken using other related systems for budget and work allocation in which empirical data on decision-makers’ subsequent behavior can be monitored.

How reliable are team decisions made with Priorities Now?

The same points apply as before. If the individual decisions made by judgement analysis are consistent, then the team decisions calculated from the geometric mean of these individual decisions is also consistent. The same applies in respect of team coherence. The concordance measures provides a built-in reliability check on team agreement.

But decision-makers may check team results for themselves. A team may negotiate each paired-comparison (or an agreed overall ranking or rating of options). The resulting priority scale (or rank order) may be compared with the team priority scale calculated by Priorities Now using concordance measures.

Further checks on the reliability of team results may be made by using other team decision-making methods like Delphi and game theoretic methods.

Our tests suggest the calculated team priority scale provides a reasonable predictor of the negotiated ranking or rating under certain conditions. The conditions are that all team members conceive the options the same way (as assessed by linguistic variable scaling), each team member’s priorities have stabilised at + or – 1% under iteration with acceptable consistency scores, a team view had stabilised through successive iterations at + or – 1% around the team priorities with high degree of concordance, no team member has access to any other’s priorities, team members unanimously judge the outcome of their negotiations satisfactorily represents the team view (according to a predefined satisfaction scale), and no team member assigns weights above a defined threshold to the criterion “team views” (and certainly not weights which are equal to or higher than weights they assign to their “own views”, or to any of their strongly weighted criteria). However, if the team is widely divergent, it is relevant to explore the pattern and basis for the variations between decision-makers’ judgements, using the concordance measures and discordant option priorities and criteria weights to identify points of conflict. This is preferable to proceeding with an artificial consensus.

How can you know if Priorities Now actually produces more effective decisions?

Inconsistent or incoherent decisions can be at best, being partially effective. Unresolved team conflicts on major issues tend to impede effective action. Priorities Now ensures consistency and coherence. Managers can use Priorities Now itself to evaluate the effectiveness of decisions they make with it, and incorporate their learning when they use Priorities Now on the next issue.

Do the mathematical techniques in Priorities Now produce arbitrary figures and transformations?

Priorities Now uses a set of reliable, validated mathematical methods which together form a coherent, validated mathematical model. None of the figures or “transformations” are in any sense arbitrary. It is not arbitrary, for example, to apply the rule that if a decision-maker maintains that A is more important than B, and B than C, then it would be logical for him to maintain that A is more important than C.

Does Priorities Now assume managers behave in certain ways?

Priorities Now assumes that there is some relationship to be determined between a manager’s relative priorities, between priorities between options and his/her relative reasons for these options. The assumptions are of the kind fully accepted by mathematicians throughout the field of multi-dimensional scaling. Most conventionally accepted decision methods make for stronger assumptions about human behavior. No special philosophical basis is implied by the methods or the mathematics used in Priorities Now.

What are the limitations of Priorities Now?

Though it represents a significant step forward in decision-making method and practice, Priorities Now is not the universal cure-all or panacea for all ills. It is limited by the formulation of the issue, the perceptual and conceptual limitations of decision-makers, the power of the decision-makers, and the information used,

Issue formulation - If decision-makers are addressing the wrong issue, and irrelevant issues, or merely the presenting problems, Priorities Now will not of itself produce decisions which deal with the relevant fundamental issue. Priorities Now depends on how the issue is framed, and decisions which emerge it only apply to that issue.

However, decision-makers often find themselves redefining the issue in the light of their experiences with Priorities Now, so that the underlying issue is clarified, especially since the criteria are usually applicable to aspects of work way beyond the issue on hand.

Perceptions and conceptions - Decisions are effectively constrained by the limits of the decision-maker’s own perception and conception of what is desirable and achievable. This applies whether or not the decisions are taken using Priorities Now. But specifying the decision-maker’s conceptions using Priorities Now often prompts recognition of the limitations of his/her own view. Exploring objectives via the program often broadens the decision-maker’s vision of the issue, the options and the criteria, as may the participation of others in team with decision-making Priorities Now.

Power - The decision-maker’s discretion or freedom of choice on an issue, or ability to implement a decision, may all be limited – indeed, is always to some extent limited except for absolute dictators.

If the constraints on the decision-maker in power are so tight and narrow as to restrict the decision-maker’s choice to virtually nil discretion, the Priorities Now is only of help in producing recommendations on that issue (though it could usefully be refocused on the more fundamental issue of how the decision-maker might acquire more discretion). If these constraints are adjustable, then the decision-maker takes them into account when deciding priorities and policies, assessing how much weight he/she will give to the external forces limiting freedom of choice.

Information - Difficult decisions are usually made in the context of uncertainty. Relevant information is almost never completely adequate or confirmed. Priorities Now enables the decision-maker to produce the most justifiable decision, given the available information and his/her values.

Decision-makers may lack information relevant to the issue or decide on the basis of inaccurate information. Of course this affects the outcome. Priorities Now can at least be used to ensure information is interpreted consistently and coherently to decide what further information gathering and testing is required. It can be used to elicit the best available judgements to fill information gaps with experience-based estimations and valuations where this is otherwise unobtainable. For Priorities Now ensures information is effectively used to make decisions.

However, information usually relates to the easily quantifiable, factual variables in the decision. These are all too often over-weighted at the expense of the qualitative variables, for which Priorities Now is particularly appropriate. This is important in that no data is understandable, let alone practically usable, until it has been interpreted by means of human judgement.

What are the disadvantages of Priorities Now?

Disadvantages found by managers who have used or implemented the system are:
  • individual fears of having judgements questioned by consistency measures
  • team fears of having team agreement questioned by concordance measures and conflicts exposed
  • organisational obstacles and barriers to systematic decision-making
  • lack of acceptance of any need to aid and evaluate decisions
  • macho arrogance in exercising discretion riskily, unaided and unchecked
  • reduction of all services to matters of personality
  • lack of access to the Priorities Now computer program
  • over-enthusiasm of existing users.
How does Priorities Now compare with alternatives?

Priorities Now is unique, strictly speaking there are no alternatives. Most conventional procedures conduct managers through elaborate problem-analysis and goal-analysis procedures without actually producing decisions, still less checking or validating them. Decision-makers find such procedures redundant and time-consuming once they use Priorities Now, except occasionally for comparative research purposes.

Alternatives include for example, management by objectives, outranking, social judgement theory, management coefficients, Delphi, Kepner-Tregoe, Coverdale, AHP (analytic hierarchy process) nominal group method, repertory grid and decision analysis.

Priorities Now supplies the wherewithal to carry through and complete several related procedures reliably.

What typical objections have been raised to Priorities Now?

The standard objections have been aired in respect of Priorities Now, as invariably happens with significant new developments. Some of the usual thought blocks and double bind defense mechanisms against trying Priorities Now have included:
  • We’re already taking decisions that way without a computer.
  • We don’t take decisions that way.
  • We heard of it once before and nothing came of it then.
  • We tried something similar once which didn’t work.
  • We’ve never taken decisions that way before.
  • We ought to take decisions that way, but…
  • It’s a good method in principle, but…
  • We’ve been taking decisions that way for the last 5 years.
  • It will be useful in five years’ time.
  • It sounds all too easy and simple for my liking.
  • It’s too advanced and difficult for us – we don’t have the skills.
  • It’s too bland.
  • It’s too sophisticated.
  • It only confirms what we knew already.
  • It doesn’t always come up with the answers we want.
  • Decisions are all a matter of gut feelings.
  • Decisions are all a matter of adequate information.
  • It’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
  • The help it provides is a mere drop in the ocean.
  • We haven’t the money for it.
  • Our decisions are different.
  • It can’t apply to large organisations.
  • It can’t apply to small organisations.
  • It’s not relevant to my work.
  • My bosses wouldn’t appreciate it.
  • My staff wouldn’t appreciate it.
  • Who says it’s a good idea?
  • It’s too pie-in-the-sky.
  • It’s too mundane.
  • It’s only a passing fashion.
  • We’ve heard it all before.
  • It’s too basic.
  • It’s too threatening to existing ways.
  • I’m paid to take decisions.
  • I don’t have any choice anyway.
  • All we need is more resources.
  • Whose got time to think about priorities?
How are such objections to be met?

Priorities Now can be applied within existing decision processes and methods. For it is a general decision-making method based on natural ways of deciding. Yet Priorities Now takes most users beyond what they can achieve unaided. It is designed to be practical and easy to use, while leading users through naturally to more advanced rational methods which develop their decision skills. Sometimes this leads to a transformation in ways of managing.

Priorities Now has been successfully used by most kinds and levels of management for tackling most kinds of use in most kinds of organisation (though each user tends to find his/her own personal way of using it in his/her particular work). It can be used to test and evaluate decisions, either to question or confirm them, and to spell out the implications of decisions already made. It can be used as a quick aid to difficult minor problems, or refocused for an in-depth analysis of fundamental major problems. Users can embody and preserve their intuitive grasp of issues while using it, or use it to focus their search for relevant information, adjusting their views accordingly.

For the equivalent cost of one day’s consultancy, Priorities Now provides a sounding board which however much it might clarify and aid decisions, can never of course supplants the human decision-maker, though it may extend his/her grasp and skills. It can be used to produce the best decisions achievable within the constraints of available resources and ways of working, or to develop radical new approaches to decision and action.

A manager without choices to make is a contradiction in terms, as is a manager working without any constraints. For anyone with no difficult choices to make, the only possible use of Priorities Now to be is to satisfy his/her intellectual curiosity. For the rest of us, Priorities Now is useful for our work so long as we are willing to put at least 20 minutes or so aside for thinking and planning with this program.

What is the main unique aspect of Priorities Now?

No other decision system incorporates the judgement analysis method which ensures reliable decisions, priorities and criteria, with valid built-in measures of consistency and decision standards. No other computer program has a built-in model to achieve this.