This essay will discuss which are the main characteristics of a model and compare its attributes with a real case study, in particular the one developed by researchers of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Howard M. Ellis and Ralph L. Keeney (1970) titled "A Rational Approach to Governmental Decision Concerning Air Pollution". It will subsequently describe the main challenges that are encountered in an intervention with a client and how Ellis and Keeney tackled them. It will finally examine the difficulties found implementing a project and how they relate to this particular case.
The chosen paper by Ellis and Keeney approaches the regulators decision making process of choosing between different policies to control the quality of the air in New York City. It develops a systematic procedure to select between different options/policy affected by multiple variables/criteria in an uncertain environment. This research tries to determine which environmental policy should be adopted in order to set the maximum amount of sulphur burned in the city.
English: The Decision Analysis Cycle, as presented...
English: Figure 2. Demonstration of the solutions ...
English: Figure 1. Demonstration of the decision s...The amount of sulphur burned will be dependent on seven city administrator criteria. These criteria range from health effects to various economic and political implications. This approach mainly uses Multi-criteria decision analysis to try to find an optimal solution to an ill defined situation with a large number of interrelated factors affecting an issue. It is a multi-method approach that combines hard methods such the use of utilities functions as a part of the decision analysis method to determine weights on the criteria and, to some extent, soft methods to determine all the criteria that influence the decision. Although the paper was written in 1970, it has been selected because it is still a contemporary issue and the approach used to address the problem is still valid. Recently, mass media channels such as the Daily Express...