1 “Values are what we fundamentally care about in decision making. Alternatives are simply means to obtain our values.”—Ralph Keeney 23 “Value modeling is easy to do poorly and hard to do well.”—An astute student, 2003 Chapter 19 Value-focused Thinking Gregory S. Parnell United States Military Academy at West Point and Innovative Decisions Inc. 19.1 Introduction 19.2 Concepts of Multiple Objective Decision Analysis 19.3 Qualitative Value Modeling 19.4 Quantitative Value Modeling 19.5 Alternative Generation Tables 19.6 Alternative Scoring 19.7 Deterministic Analyses 19.8 Uncertainty and Risk Analysis 19.9 Example: Evaluating a Combatant Commander’s Courses of Action 19.10 Summary 19.1 Introduction This chapter presents the concepts and techniques of value-focused thinking and multiple objective decision analysis as a unifying decision-making framework. They apply to complex decisions involving many stakeholders, conflicting objectives, and uncertainty. These techniques have been used successfully for varying applications, including operational analysis; capability-based planning; evaluating alternatives, system designs, and system-of-systems architectures; and decision making about resource allocation. 19.1.1 Alternative-focused thinking Many operational analysis studies begin with a given set of alternatives. Sometimes the commander—usually the staff—specifies the alternatives. Unfortunately, some analysts believe their job is only to help decision makers choose from specified alternatives by finding the best model or simulation to evaluate them. Keeney labels this approach alternative-focused thinking. 23 The major advantage of alternative-focused thinking is that the analysis focuses directly on the alternatives of interest to commanders and their staffs. But it has disadvantages. First, none of the initial alternatives may meet the commander’s intent. Second, the commander’s objectives may not be a direct part of the alternative evaluation, so there’s no way to identify alternatives that better meet the commander’s intent. Fortunately, value-focused thinking presents a better approach.