Guideline 4.3-- Stakeholder Involvement.

DOE-DP-STD-3023-98

health and safety objective is being weighed (e.g., risk of death, risk of permanent

injury, risk of prolonged illness) is required before assigning weights. For example,

suppose one was asked to make tradeoffs between costs of pollution abatement and

the destruction of trees from acid rain. Without consideration of how much cost

should be traded off against how many trees, a stakeholder might say, " rees are

more important than costs." Such a statement would be considered absurd by most

people if it turned out that saving two or three trees cost billions of dollars. This is why

the ranges spanned by the objectives must be considered in setting weighting

factors.1

The weights assigned to a performance measure should be chosen such that the

aggregation equation produces the correct increment to aggregate value when the

performance measure improves from its worst value to its best value. Therefore, the

weights change depending on the range of the performance measure scale over

which the scaling function is defined. Weights properly defined with the above

property are referred to as " atio scaled." The usual method for obtaining ratio-scaled

weights is to use an assessment method known as " wing weighting." Swing

weighting derives weights from decision makers by exploring the " wings"in value as

each performance measure moves from its least desirable level to its most desirable

level. Decision analysis texts should be consulted for details on such weight

assignment methods.

9.4.2

Guideline 4.2-- Fairness. The scoring process should include a fair and equitable

process for resolving differences of opinion.

Discussion. One potentially useful approach is to include within each scoring team an

individual, referred to here as an arbitrator, who has authority and responsibility to

make final scoring judgments based on the (potentially conflicting) input from other

participants. The arbitrator should (1) have an appropriate level of management

authority; (2) be generally objective regarding the ultimate allocation of resources

across the activities being evaluated to decision options, or the organizational

elements that have responsibility for those decision options; and (3) have familiarity

with the degree and scope of expertise of each expert providing input so that he/she

can appropriately weigh their individual judgments.

9.4.3

Guideline 4.3-- Stakeholder Involvement. In developing and applying RBP systems,

an appropriate group of stakeholders should be involved in the prioritization. The

selection of stakeholders should be based on the purpose and decision objectives of

the prioritization.

Discussion. There is no universally applicable set of stakeholders and no hard and

fast rule for their selection. It is not necessary or desirable to include every possible

Example taken from Detlof von Winterfeldt and Ward Edwards, Decision Analysis and

Behavioral Research, Cambridge University Press, 1986.