Collective Decision-Making: the Analytic Hierarchy Process

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a method to improve decision making whose application here is to complex environments. “A.H.P.” involves structuring a decision into a hierarchy, determining relative priorities for the elements in the hierarchy, and combining the numbers into overall weights estimating each decision outcome. The need for decision aids such as AHP, is supported by the literature, which suggests that even experts can contend with only limited amounts of information and tend to arrive at decisions in a simple fashion. AHP allows for using more information to make decisions in more complex ways. This leads to more coherent decisions. In the case presented AHP helped a committee make resource allocation decisions in an urban renewal project in Israel. The example highlights the usefulness of AHP in group settings. Areas of disagreement were easily identified and discussed. This diffused much of the tension typical of these proceedings.