NATURE OF PROBLEM ILL-STRUCTUREDNESS: IMPLICATIONS FOR PROBLEM FORMULATION AND SOLUTION

The distinction between ill-structured and well-structured decision problems is extended in this paper to include the degree of familiarity that a decision maker has with the initial state of the problem, its desired state, and appropriate transformations for resolving the problem. It is shown that problem ill-structuredness may result from inadequate information regarding any of these components and that the nature of problem ill-structuredness has important implications for problem formulation and solution. A decision tree is presented which represents strategies for either reformulating primary problems of each class of ill-structuredness to a more readily solved form, or solving the problem as initially formulated.