Decision-making Tools to Support Innovation

Introduction

In our daily lives, we all must make decisions of different kinds. These might include where we go to eat lunch, our next trips, the next new car we will buy, our career development, etc. If the choice is to be made between several alternatives and if it is dependent on multiple different factors, then we are faced with a multi-criteria decision problem. Generally, people tend to reduce the limits of the problem by transforming it into a general decision, in other words, a problem that highlights a predominant factor at the time when the decision is made. However, when this decision involves an important issue, reducing its complexity would not be appropriate because simplifying the problem would also entail a loss of information necessary to make the right choice.

In companies, decision-making is also a very common practice, though one that is complex, because it is necessary to reconcile different factors and points of view. For example, in the development of a current project, the manager is faced with several decisions: from the allocation of resources to the choice of suppliers, the mode of transport to be used or even the method of financing. Not to mention that with the current development of the digital world, the data sources used to qualify and compare the alternatives of choices have multiplied.

In addition, in the specific case of an innovation project, the decisions become more complex. Indeed, by its own nature, the innovation process involves the ...