FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: THE ATTRIBUTES GRID

PURPOSE:

Decision-making can be greatly clarified with the use of the Attributes Grid.

This can be used whenever there are several options under consideration, and they are
being matched against a list of attributes or criteria. What emerges is a prioritised list of options.

PROCEDURE:

1 Write the options in the first column of the grid provided on page 100. Use as many or as few as you need; the number varies from situation to situation.

2 Write the attributes down in the top row of boxes; in this example, there are five boxes, located between the “options” and “totals” columns.

3 Score each option against each attribute, using a Rating Scale ranging from 1 to 5.

To remain impartial, it is essential that you complete each column sequentially, i.e. complete the first column first, then the second, and so on. Thus, all the options arematched against an attribute, before proceeding on to the next column.

This way, you remain impartial in your scoring, and the results possess integrity.

The syntax for the attributes must remain in the same form.

‘Increased productivity’, for example, does not match ‘a decrease in employee complaints’ ~ it should read instead ‘an increase in employee satisfaction.’

Change all the negative statements into their positive components.

What finally emerges is a prioritised list of options, out of which the BEST OPTION is generally the one with the highest score.

In our example, the maximum total score for each option is 5 x 5 = 25, so it is very simple to work out the percentage values. However, you are free to use any other rating scale if you feel more comfortable doing so.

The highest scoring option may NOT always be the BEST option! It depends upon the attributes you consider to be the most important.

For example, when selecting the best candidate for a corporate position, the highest scoring individual may have a very poor rating for ‘loyalty’ ~ thus, despite the high score, the person’s value to the organisation is still questionable. Each attribute can have an identical ‘weightage,’ or you could vary the ‘weightage.’

"All decision-making tools are meant to be our guides, not our masters!"


[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowldge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]