AHP lets you define criteria that you will then use to score your different alternatives (vendors, projects, locations, designs, hiring candidates, etc.). You can score your alternatives in one of three ways - we call these Question Types.
The first question type is pairwise comparison. This is a really useful method to use when you are comparing things that are simple preferences and for which you cannot create a "scale" to measure (or estimate) the alternative -- for example, "which colour do your prefer". If you select pairwise comparison, you will then set up a survey to score your alternatives and the software will automatically work out what questions to ask.
The second question type is a scale. Scales are exactly what you would expect them to be. You define a scale to measure how an alternative scores against a particular criteria. For example, you might have a scale to evaluate risk. Again, you will set up a survey to score your alternatives in which case the software will automatically work out what questions to ask.
Finally, you can use attribute data to score your alternatives. Attributes are data that are not judgements from people within TransparentChoice (like pairwise comparisons or scales, both of which are scored by humans). Attributes, on the other hand, tend to come from "outside". They may be technical specifications or the output of financial models.
You need to tell TransparentChoice what question type you want to use for each criterion. Here's how.
First open up the Question Types screen. These screen-shots show you how to do this in our different products.
Next, for each bottom-level criterion select one of the three question types. First click on the criterion you're interested in. Then, to use pairwise comparison, simply select pairwise comparison from the drop-down list.
If you'd like to use a scale, select "Scale" from the dropdown list.
Next, you need to set up the scale you want to use. You can either use a template scale or simply type one in.
If you want to use an attribute, start by selecting "Attribute" from the drop-down and then choose which attribute you'd like to attach to the criterion. TransparentChoice will automatically normalize the attribute data so that it can be used in the decision model.
Repeat this for each of your bottom-level criteria.