Winner of the 2016 Isdefe’s IDEAS challenge (2nd edition)
Internal R&D project
The main objective of Isdefe’s internal R&D project Methodology for Decision Making in Complex Environments (DECIDE) is to identify existing methodologies/tools and design Isdefe’s own methodology for capturing knowledge with qualitative methods generally based on expert opinions and their analysis and processing to support decision making.
The difficulty of obtaining knowledge and consequently any kind of related decision making, when there is no room for mathematical models that allow quantitative methods, is generally increased by the following:
- to develop in highly specialized environments with high uncertainty,
- There are no widely accepted opinions and there is a wide disparity of criteria, so that the experts’ own professional conditioning factors have a significant influence on the criteria for their opinions and decisions,
- the possibility of finding a significant number of participants, which makes the process more difficult, the capture and structuring of the information provided by them, and a real-time analysis of this information.
For this purpose, in the first stage of the project, an analysis of the different techniques or methods of application in the field of decision making was carried out, trying to analyze and identify their main characteristics.
Through the analysis of this type of techniques and methods, a generic methodology was defined to provide Isdefe with a support tool for the definition and execution of different decision-making processes.
Subsequently, the validity of this methodology was analyzed in the main areas in which the former Technological and Industrial Management Department worked, specifically in the areas of Defense Planning and Industrial Management.
Finally, it was validated through the application on a practical case, associated to the real need expressed by two of the Management’s clients, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (EMACON) and the General Sub-Directorate of Inspection, Regulation and Defense Industrial Strategy (SDG INREID).
The project was developed by a team coordinated by Alfredo Peña Ruiz of Isdefe’s Defense and Security Technologies Department.
For further information, please contact innovacion@isdefe.es
