Home > Articles > Productivity Series > Decision-making matrix
site map of HealMyLife.com	Our counsellor about George	client testimonies

Home  Professional Services  What Clients Say  Contact Us 
The Decision-making Matrix

© George Hartwell, 2003, (416) 234-1850

www.HealMyLife.com, Call today and transform your life into a life worth living, more productive, fruitful for the kingdom and satisfying to you.

Would you like a clearer view of the options when you are faced with major decisions? 

Most of us would benefit from some way to look at our options more objectively. A way of putting things down on paper so our mind isn't weighed down trying to remember all the factors and how they impact each option. Thus - the Decision-making Matrix.

On one piece of paper, on one grid or matrix, you can put down a lot of factors that effect your decision. With care and some time you can make a lot of little decisions that make the big decision clearer. Groups, families and churches can use a group matrix to make those big decisions by working through a lot of little decisions that help the group work through every imaginable factor and its impact on the outcome.

So this method reduces stress on an individual, leads to carefully considered decisions, and allows groups to work towards consensus or agreement without one big emotional power conflict.

On the paper, or spreadsheet, you have factors as rows and options as columns. This works for the typical decisions where there are more factors than options.

Matrix of an over- stressed student and single mother	Drop a class	Reduce work hours	A semester off/work full-time
Stress reduction	5	4	7
Financial Impact	3	4	5
Life Goals	3	6	3
Children	6	6	8
Total	17	20	23

In cases with many options, like what make of car to buy, the makes of car can be the rows and the factors as columns. In this example higher scores meant better in that category:

Matrix for considering an auto purchase	Safety	Reliability	Depreciation	Comments	Fuel	Total
Buick Regal	20	23	18	6	14	81
Honda Accord	5	18	22	8	26	79
Ford Taurus	20	16	32	9	16	93
Toyota Avalon	15	27	4	10	21	77
BMW - 3 series	15	24	10	15	12	76

In this example of auto purchase the Ford Taurus is more than 10% better than any other model and that is a significant factor. A lot of careful research can be compiled unto such a chart. The additional factor to consider, not included here, is the carrying cost of the original purchase price. The advantage would go to the cheapest to purchase. This factor would again favour the Ford Taurus as it is the cheapest of the vehicles to purchase.

For your own personal decision use a full page. You can put your options as columns and the factors effecting your decision as rows. The column for "Weight" is what you have decided to score that factor out of.

There is no need to have any particular total of weightings. This is a relative matter. Try to word each factor as a positive so that each score can be added. (A negative factor would need to be subtracted from a total of otherwise positive factors.)

Generic matrix	Weight	Option 1	Option 2	Option 3
Factor #1	20	15	12	8
Factor #2	10	7	5	4
Total	30	22	17	12

Note: a 10% difference in totals between options is considered significant. The figures are relative. The weights do not need to total 100, for example. The totals will be relative and out of whatever the total of the weightings is. In the above example and difference of 3 points is 10% and option #1 is clearly out ahead.