Course Description
Decision Analysis (APPEL-DA)
Audience
This course is designed for NASA’s technical workforce, including systems engineers and project personnel involved in project teams or small projects.
Goal
When asked what participants learned that would be most beneficial to their work, they said…
"How to work w/in team situations to analyze a problem and make a decision based on group-generated alternatives. " —GRC, 2007
This two-day course is designed to provide the tools necessary to improve the quality of a factually based decision-making process for resolving technical issues at NASA.
Learning Methods
Case studies, small group applications, and informed discussions with knowledgeable resources will serve as the basis for course activities.
Specific Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
- Identify the technical management processes that support decision analysis.
- Explain the specific role of SEMP in making technical decisions.
- Establish guidelines to determine which technical issues are subject to a formal evaluation process.
- Define the criteria for evaluating alternative solutions.
- Identify alternative solutions to address decision issues.
- Select evaluation methods based on the purpose for analyzing a decision and on the availability of the information used to support the method.
- Evaluate alternative solutions using the established criteria and selected methods.
- Select recommended solutions from the alternatives based on the evaluation criteria.
- Explain the benefits of tools and processes used for decision analysis, e.g. trade-off analyses, modeling, simulation, decision matrices, etc.
