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Grid analysis is a useful decision-making technique and is of particular use when you are trying to take a lot of factors into account and all the options seem equally attractive.
Task
- List the various options you have identified and then the factors you feel are particularly important in helping you make the decision.
- Put this information into a table, with the identified options as the row titles, and the factors as column headings.
- Then go on to work out the relative weights of the factors in your decision. These should be depicted as numbers which can then be used to weight your preferences. For example, if you were buying a house and you desperately wanted to live in the city center rather than on the outskirts, you would give location a considerable weighting (perhaps 4 or 5 in a scaling system of 1-5). If you need help assigning values to your factors, consult the Paired Comparison Analysis tool.
- Now go through the table, scoring each option against each of the important factors in your decision. Score each option from 0 (poor) to 3 (very good). Note that it is perfectly OK to have the same score for each of the options – indeed, if none of the options are particularly good at satisfying one of the factors in your decision, then all options should score 0.
- Once you have done this, go on to multiply each of your scores by the values for your relative weights. This will give them the correct overall weight in your decision.
- Finally, add up these weighted scores for your options. The option that scores highest will be the best.
Example
A dog-grooming and training enthusiast is keen to replace her car. She needs one that has plenty of room to allow her three prize-winning dogs to travel in style, but also allows her to pursue the high-glamor image consistent with her standing in the dog-grooming world. Her husband, a clay-pigeon shooting fanatic, has stated that she should purchase a car suitable for his weekend shooting pursuits which often entail driving down dirt-tracks. No car she can find is good for all things.
She has listed her options as follows:
- a large jeep type vehicle
- a family saloon
- an estate car with plenty of room in the boot
- a flash sports car
She needs to keep in mind the following considerations:
- price
- ability to carry three luxury-sized dog baskets
- ability to store all the dogs’ grooming equipment
- ability to handle rough terrains comfortably
- a car that would look good arriving at the country club
Following the instructions in the task box, she draws up a table in which to store and weight the information:
Factors:
Cost
Dogs
Storage
Terrain
Look
Total
Relative Weights:
Sports car
1
0
0
0
3
Jeep
1
3
1
3
1
Family saloon
2
2
1
1
1
Estate car
2
3
2
2
0
Next she applies the relative weights for each of the factors. She then multiplies these by the scores already entered, and totals them. This is shown here:
Factors:
Cost
Dogs
Storage
Terrain
Look
Total
Relative Weights:
3
5
3
4
3
Sports car
3
0
0
0
9
12
Jeep
3
15
3
12
3
36
Family saloon
6
10
3
4
3
26
Estate car
6
15
6
8
0
35
From the table we can see that the jeep narrowly betters the estate car. If, when you get to this stage, you are unhappy with the results of the table, it probably means that you need to rethink the importance of each factor and the weighting each deserves. It could also mean that the most sensible option overall is not necessarily the most attractive option overall.
