Return on Software: Maximizing the Return on Your Software Investment

Chapter 25. Decision Making Under Uncertainty

Decision making under uncertainty is used when it's not possible to assign probabilities to the outcomes. A custom software development company might submit a proposal for an outsourced software project but not have any idea whether their proposal will be accepted. These techniques can also be used when you don't want to put probabilities on the outcomes; in a safety-critical software system where a failure could threaten human life, people may not react well to an assigned probability of fatality. If probabilities can be assigned, the decision making under risk techniques in Chapter 24 should be used. Several different techniques for decision making under uncertainty are covered in this chapter: ...