DAR
Post date: Apr 1, 2013 9:31:17 PM
DAR stands for Decision Analysis and Resolution. This technique is used to analyse possible decisions using a formal evaluation process. In this various alternatives are evaluated against some criteria.
SWOT analysis
When to use
Business decisions making process
Budget Prioritization
Evaluate risks on acquisitions, investments, IP
Outsourcing decisions
When expenditure or investment is of high value
Risk Management (evaluation of risk mitigation strategies)
Supplier Agreement Management (supplier selection)
Technical decisions making process
Products, features (cost-benefit, build/buy)
Designs, platforms
Process tailoring (including life cycle selection)
Testing approaches
Requirements Management (evaluation of the impact of requirement changes)
Technical Solution (evaluation of architecture alternatives)
Verification, Validation, Product Integration.(choosing the right strategies like integration sequence etc.)
Project Monitoring and Control (choosing the right corrective actions)
Selection of a development tool etc.
Project Planning (estimation, resource planning, etc.)
How
DAR process
Establish criteria
Identify alternative solutions
Select methods for evaluating alternatives
Evaluate the alternative solutions
Select recommended solutions
Steps in DAR
Define when do we need to take action? Define guidelines.
Set objectives to achieve, criteria to evaluate.
Classify objectives - Not all objectives are must to have.
Assign weight to different objectives
Identify alternatives
Test alternatives ***
Score alternatives
Apply weight and get weighted total score for all the alternatives
Identify risk with each alternative
Select the best alternative (make the decision) ***
Most of the cases similar approach is taken but most important steps in this process (Test or evaluate, and make a decision) are the one which require skill, knowledge and experience and here it becomes difficult for those who take and learn it as a theory. Many people who are supposed to take decisions based on some evaluation can not do evaluation which may require for example installing, configuring and using various e-Commerce software to decide which one to choose among many.
Example
Define objective of DAR -
Selection of eCommerce solution
Criteria to evaluate -
An eCommerce solution is required for a large transport organization, decision is to be taken in 3 weeks time, budget limit is 100,000 USD, the solution should be working within 9 months, the solution should provide high availability (99.9%), robustness and excellent performance (response time of transactions within 9 seconds, can handle peak load and defect density confirms to 6 sigma). Current solution is suffering from serious performance problems. Active users on e-Commerce site are more than 3 million at peak time. The solution should provide for multilingual support. The solution should provide for easy mobile integration. 24x7 support is desirable, and solution should be compatible with existing hardware.
Classification
Required: Performance, Availability & Robustness, Budget 100 USD
Desired: Multilingual, mobile integration, 24x7 support, compatible with existing hardware
Weight desired criteria or objective
Assign weights on a scale for an example between 1 to 10, 10 is highest.
Multilingual - 8
Mobile integration - 6
24x7 support - 7
Compatibility with existing hardware - 5
Identify the options
Vendor1
Vendor2
Vendor3
Vendor4
Evaluate different options against required criteria
Rate options against desired criteria
Identify the risk
Vendor 2 is using product in which programming language and platform very old and going to be obsolete, there is a risk of not getting skilled resources in future. Vendor 2 is also using technologies which have vendor locking so there a a risk in vendor2 solution.
Vendor4 is using using open systems and latest technology so it has no such risk.
Make a decision
Scores of vendor2 and vendor4 are same and they are higher than others but risk with vendor2 is high so best option is to go with solution provided by vendor4