Paired comparison analysis to help make decisions

An idiosyncratic site on leadership decision making, hosted by Prof. Hossein Arsham, explains how paired comparison analysis can help a law department manager work out the importance of a number of options relative to each other. It is particularly useful where you do not have objective data to base the comparison on. This analytic tool makes it easier to choose the most important problem to solve, or select the solution that will give you the greatest advantage. It helps you set priorities where there are conflicting demands on your resources.

First list your options. Then prepare a grid (a table) with each option as both a row and a column header. Use this grid to compare each option with each other option, one-by-one. For each comparison, decide which of the two options is most important, and then assign a score to show how much more important it is. Consolidate these comparisons so that each option is given a percentage importance.