Comment 74233

By Simon (registered) - website | Posted February 11, 2012 at 17:34:21 in reply to Comment 74220

My God - I hope thats not all they were presented with to make their decision!!!

As you pointed out - its pretty much irrelevant that one site is ranked marginally higher or lower than another - that is just looking at an arbitrary number.

Usually cost is weighted much higher than other factors - but cost estimates are estimates, and depend on a lot of assumptions. For example cost could be worth 50% of the final index - but the cost may only be accurate within plus or minus 20%. Therefore just with the sensitivity in cost the final index could swing 10% one way or the other.

Another critical factor that has been pointed out is how subjective ranking systems such as this are to manipulation. You are exactly correct that they should be a guideline only.

Its not uncommon to have a preconcieved notion going in of what you think is the preferred recommendation. Its pretty easy to tweak a factor here and there to make the numbers match your desired outcome.

Here is a common conversation - "Hey looks like Option C works out to be preferred". "Hmmmmm, we were really hoping for A or B - C really isn't going to work for us - I can't present that." "Well, Treatment X has the biggest impact between each Option - and it sounds like Treatment Y is more important to you than you thought - if I decrease the importance of X a bit and increase the importance of Y, Option A or B will probably come out on top." "Ya I think you are right, Treatment Y is a little bit more important than X, so that makes sense." "Ok, I'll make those revisions".

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