SuperDecisions.com: Software ANP

The Super Decisions software is used for decision-making with dependence and feedback. It implements the Analytic Hierarchy Process, AHP, and the Analytic Network Process, ANP. Both use the same fundamental prioritization process based on deriving priorities by making judgments on pairs of elements, or obtaining priorities by normalizing direct measurements. In the AHP the decision elements are arranged in a hierarchic decision structure from the goal to the criteria to the alternatives of choice, while in the ANP the decision elements are grouped in clusters, one of which contains the alternatives, which the others contain the criteria, or stakeholders or other decision elements. 

In the ANP there is not a specific goal element, rather the priorities are determined in a relative framework of influences and the prioritization of the alternatives is implicitly understood to be with respect to whatever the network is about: the decision concern. The clusters are arranged into a network with links among the elements, or sometimes into multiple tiers of elements such as when a problem is decomposed into Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks. Most decision-making methods including the AHP assume independence: between the criteria and the alternatives, or among the criteria or among the alternatives. The ANP is not limited by such assumptions. It allows for all possible and potential dependencies.

 

The ANP does not limit human understanding and experience to force decision-making into a highly technical model that is unnatural and contrived. It is in essence a formalization of how people usually think, and it helps the decision-maker keep track of the process as the complexity of the problem and the diversity of its factors increase. The best testimony of the power and success of the ANP are those applications that have been done that derived priorities that corresponded with known answers in the real world or that have predicted outcomes. From that perspective it is a reliable and objective approach for making decisions based on priorities and importance with which one has had experience. It is rather different than making guesses about the probabilities of occurrence as some decision-making methods would have you do.