Value-focused thinking

1. Value-focused thinking Dr. Yan Liu Department of Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Wright State University

2. Introduction • Alternative-Focused Thinking • Focuses on the choice among alternatives • First characterizes a decision problem as alternatives available • Then considers objectives and criteria to evaluate alternatives • Reactive not proactive • Starts with obvious alternatives available and then selects one • Value-Focused Thinking • Focuses on values • Generates alternatives based on values • Evaluates alternatives using values • Proactive • Starts with deciding what the decision maker wants and then works to make it a reality

3. Job Choice Example John is a senior at Wright State University. He plans to work for a few years before attending graduate school in business. How should he find “the right” job? Alternative-Focused Approach He interviews with firms that recruit graduates on campus and pursues possibilities back home. Suppose that after reading short descriptions of job placement possibilities, he selects six firms to interview and gets three offersfrom these interviews. He also mentions to some people back home that he is graduating and in the job market. From this, two good prospects for offers come up, but these are not yet actual offers. At this stage, John has five alternatives and must choose one. First, he may eliminate alternatives that seem to be noncontenders, reducing the possibilities to three. Then, the choice may become difficult. He may rank the remaining alternatives in terms of his personal feelings about them and in terms of their probable effects on his career. He may also talk to friends, teachers, and parents about the options…

4. Value-Focused Approach John can begin by clarifying what he wants to achieve by working for the next few years. After hard thinking and perhaps some serious study, he may break his objectives into four categories broadly concerned with (1)learning valuable skills (e.g. marketing, finance, and interpersonal skills) for his career, (2) finding out for sure whether he wants to go to graduate school in business, (3)enhancing his chances of acceptance at the best business schools, and (4) experiencing a different geographical region and lifestyle. Using his interests to guide his thinking, John should be able to identify jobs that may well satisfy his desires. Once he has identified particularly desirable jobs in each category, he should rank them using all of his objectives. To make at least one of the best jobs into a bona fide offer, part of John’s task is to identify the resources available to assist him, including his experiences and skills, contacts, professional organizations, sources of ideas (such as books), and of course campus recruiting. Following through using such resources should produce job offers. These offers should be at least as good and more likely to be better than the offers acquired through alternative-focused thinking.

5. Values • What are Values • Things that are important to decision makers • Values should drive decisions • Constraint-Free Thinking • Thinking about what we wish to achieve or have • Thinking of desirable alternatives • Payoffs are potentially much greater than constrained thinking • Helpful in ill-defined problems

6. Central Role of Thinking About Values

7. Central Role of Thinking About Values (Cont.) • Uncovering Hidden Objectives • Thinking about values naturally provides an initial list of decision values • Provide many keys to identifying previously subconscious values and bringing them to consciousness • Creating Alternatives • Creating alternatives is more important than evaluating readily available ones • Thinking about values enhances creation of new desirable alternatives • Value model guides the search for creative alternatives in the direction in which one should go • Identifying Decision Opportunities • Identify opportunities to better achieve our overall values • Initial stimulus is typically a disenchantment with something or perceived possibility to do something better • Think routinely about how things are going and whether we can do better

8. Central Role of Thinking About Values (Cont.) Guiding Strategic Thinking Strategic values should be identified to guide all decisions Suggest when and where potentially productive decision opportunities may be lurking Suggest more specific objectives for the potential decision opportunities Interconnecting Decisions Different decisions are made in a consistent manner All chosen alternatives should further the same set of strategic objectives Guiding Information Collection Values determine what information is important Collect the information that will help us judge the alternatives in terms of achieving the predetermined values Lead to better decisions either through the creation of better alternatives or through wiser choices of alternatives 8

9. Central Role of Thinking About Values (Cont.) Facilitating Involvement in Multiple-Stakeholder Decisions VFT can contribute to the productivity of interactions among multiple stakeholders Discussions can separate disagreements about possible consequences from disagreements about the relative desirability of those consequences Group can constructively reduce conflicts Improving Communication The language of VFT is the common language about the achievement of objectives in some particular decision context (not a technical language of specialties) Values specify what is important and should be discussed when evaluating alternatives 9

10. Central Role of Thinking About Values (Cont.) Evaluating Alternatives Value judgments can be quantified and used to build a value model Quantifies the benefit from implementing various alternatives Used for comparison purposes Which alternatives do more to give the decision maker what he/she wants Can be used as an objective function for optimization A utility function Maps anticipated benefit to a dimensionless number (utility) 10

11. Value-Focused Thinking Process • Identify Potential Objectives • Discussions with decision makers and stakeholders • Techniques • Refer to the techniques listed in Table 3.2 at page 45 of the textbook • Transform into Objectives • The initial list may contain many items that are not objectives • Alternatives, constraints, and criteria to evaluate alternatives, … • Features of objectives • Decision context • Object • A direction of preference • Example: • One objective of a forest company is “ to minimize environmental impacts” • Context: Harvesting natural resources • Object: Environmental impact • Direction of preference : Less impact rather than more

12. Value-Focused Thinking Process (Cont.) • Structure Objectives • Develop a clear structure and a sound conceptual basis for relating objectives in decision context • Fundamental objectives hierarchy • Means objectives network • Use the WITI (Why Is That Important) test • Create Alternatives • Alternatives should be created that best achieve the objectives specified for the decision situation • Thinking about how to achieve fundamental and means objectives • Begin with focusing on one objective at a time • Next consider two objectives at a time • The generated alternatives are likely to be refinements or combinations of those created for single objectives • Continue until all objectives are considered together • Examine the generated alternatives to see if it is possible to combine some of them into a single alternative

13. Value-Focused Thinking Process (Cont.) • Evaluate Alternatives • Evaluation criteria are based on values • Make Decisions • Decision trees • Multi-attribute decision making techniques

14. Transporting Nuclear Waste Fuel for nuclear power plants is contained in rods that are inserted into the reactor. After use, these rods, then referred to as spent fuel rods, are withdrawn and stored in pools of water to allow their radioactivity to decrease through radioactive decay. After some years, they are taken from the pool and placed in a cask for shipping to either a temporary “monitored retrievable storage facility” or a permanent “geologic repository”. If temporary storage is utilized, the spent fuel will later be shipped to a geologic repository. As part of the Department of Energy’s program to evaluate the alternatives for managing spent fuel, a study was commissioned to evaluate metal cask systems for shipping spent nuclear fuel from power plants to storage locations.

15. Identifying Stakeholder Objectives During a two-day meeting, objectives for the shipment of spent nuclear fuel were elicited from three panels, each with 10 to 15 members: 1) the technical panel which was composed of people from utility companies and other firms in the nuclear industry, 2) the governmental panel which included representatives of state governments and federal agencies, and 3) the public interest panel which included people from environmental groups, consumer groups, and universities. The initial meeting with stakeholders was a common meeting. This let the stakeholders know that they received the same information at the same time, putting them on equal footing and suggesting that the process was a legitimate effort rather than simply window dressing. Several important topics were reviewed in the general meeting. First the waste shipment problem was outlined. Then the purposes of involving the stakeholders, how they were selected, and the uses of their results were clarified. This set the stage for the identification of objectives using the techniques listed in Table 3.2 of the textbook (e.g. developing a wish list, determining strategic objectives, predicting consequences), which was carried out in a separate ninety-minute session with each panel.

16. Fundamental Objectives Hierarchy of the Technical Panel Positive Social Impacts Minimize Economic Costs Positive Political Impacts Minimize Health and Safety Impacts Minimize government costs Minimize utilities costs Minimize radiation effects Minimize transportation effects Increase political acceptability Positive impacts on transportation system Positive local and state attitudes Increase public confidence To the public To the public Improve aesthetics To the workers To the workers

17. Fundamental Objectives Hierarchy of the Government Panel Minimize Health and Safety Impacts Minimize Costs Minimize indirect economic costs Minimize direct economic costs Minimize transportation effects Minimize radiation effects Costs of state and local responses to the system State costs Federal costs Court costs, regulatory costs, etc. To the public To the public Utility company costs Road maintenance costs To the workers To the workers

18. Government Nuclear industry Fundamental Objectives Hierarchy of the Government Panel (Cont.) Positive Political Impacts Minimize Environmental Impacts Minimize groundwater contamination Minimize roadbed damage Minimize visual impacts from storage Fulfill government commitments Increase public acceptability Increase public confidence Maintain land resources for plants Equity of Risks Among groups (public, transportation workers, industry workers) Geographical

19. Fundamental Objectives Hierarchy of the Public Interest Panel Minimize Health and Safety Impacts Minimize Environmental Impacts Minimize transportation effects Minimize impacts on future generations Minimize radiation effects Minimize impacts on biosphere (from radiation release) Maintain land resources for plants Genetic effects To the public To the public Reduce psychological impacts Cancer To the workers To the workers Reduce fears and anxieties Increase assurance of a compensation system

20. Fundamental Objectives Hierarchy of the Public Interest Panel (Cont.) Increase Fairness and Equity Positive Political Impacts Increase political acceptability Reduce need for regulation/ inspection Increase resilience against Increase equity between risk bearers and beneficiaries of nuclear power Increase equity between present and future generations Regulatory changes Political changes Improve Liability and compensation

21. Combined Fundamental Objectives Hierarchy Minimize Costs Minimize Health and Safety Impacts Minimize indirect economic costs Minimize direct economic costs Minimize transportation effects Minimize impacts on future generations Minimize radiation effects Costs of state and local responses to the system State costs Federal costs Genetic effects To the public To the public Court costs, regulatory costs, etc. Utility company costs Cancer To the workers To the workers Road maintenance costs

22. Combined Fundamental Objectives Hierarchy (Cont.) Minimize Environmental Impacts Minimize groundwater contamination Minimize roadbed damage Minimize visual impacts from storage Maintain land resources for plants Minimize impacts on biosphere Positive Political Impacts Increase resilience against Positive local and state attitudes Fulfill government commitments Reduce need for regulation/ inspection Increase public confidence Regulatory changes Government Political changes Technical system

23. Combined Fundamental Objectives Hierarchy (Cont.) Positive Social Impacts Positive impacts on transportation system Reduce fears and anxieties Improve aesthetics Increase Fairness and Equity Increase equity Improve Liability and compensation Public, transportation workers, industry workers Geographical Risk bearers and beneficiaries of nuclear power Present and future generations

24. Means Objectives Minimize Court costs, regulatory costs, etc. Minimize costs of state and local responses to the system Minimize radiation effects Minimize impacts on future generations Minimize road maintenance costs Minimize transportation and handling accidents Minimize utility company costs Minimize transportation and handling Minimize transportation effects Reduce fears and anxieties

25. Means Objectives Minimize impacts on future generations Minimize radiation effects Minimize impacts on biosphere Minimize groundwater contamination Minimize vulnerability to sabotage Reduce fears and anxieties Increase public confidence Minimize costs of state and local responses to the system Minimize court costs, regulatory costs, etc. Minimize utility company costs

26. Means Objectives Fulfill government commitments Reduce fears and anxieties Increase public confidence Positive local and state attitudes Open, honest and clear communication

27. References • Keeney, R.L. (1992). Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decision Making. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. • Keeney, R.L. (1994). Creativity in Decision Making with Value-Focused Thinking. Sloan Management Review, 35(4), 33-41.