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Welcome to DecisionSystems.org. Our purpose here is to help you make the best possible decisions in various areas of life, including: Buying A New Car, Buying A Used Car, Choosing A College, Choosing A Career, Hiring An Employee, Promoting An Employee, Buying A New House, Choosing An Apartment, Choosing A New Job, The Winning Horse In A Race, The Winning Team In Football, The Winning Team In Baseball, The Winning Team In Basketball, Choosing A Male Lover/Spouse, Choosing A Female Lover/Spouse, Choosing A City To Live In, Choosing A Religion, Choosing A Church To Attend, Choosing A Health Plan, Choosing A Primary Physician, Choosing A Hospital, Choosing A Dentist, Choosing A Lawyer, Choosing Suppliers For Your Business, Choosing A Health Club, Choosing A Hobby, Choosing A Fraternity/Sorority . . . and many, many more.
In order to do this, the main tool we use is a computer program I wrote a
few years ago, called
"Weighted Average Decision Maker."
I did release
this program to a limited extent in 1994, but I never really promoted it.
So basically it is new to most people at this time, although it was
written years ago.
Weighted Average Decision Maker is still available, at no charge, now in
the Public Domain.
You can download it
Here is the main documentation file for Weighted Average Decision Maker, slightly revised from the 1994 original.
Bill McGinnis Software / P. O. Box 2543 / Alexandria, VA 22301 / U. S. A.
INTRODUCTION TO THE WEIGHTED AVERAGE DECISION MAKER
Ver. 1.1, Oct., 1994
GENERAL INFORMATION
Welcome to the Weighted Average Decision Maker.
This program provides you with a reliable way to make many good decisions.
It also provides you with quantitative documentation to support the
decisions you have made.
It is best suited for situations in which you need to select the one best
candidate from among two or more possibilities - the one person to promote,
the one person to marry, the one job to take, the one college to attend.
You will find that the Weighted Average Decision Maker is intuitively
correct. You have probably been making many decisions almost this same
way, weighing the factors mentally and judging the alternatives informally.
This program merely formalizes and quantifies the process. Meanwhile,
it forces you to identify all the factors involved, so you are less
likely to overlook something of importance.
HERE'S HOW IT WORKS . . .
For each decision, you will create a Decision Chart which can be saved
and modified.
First, you identify the Factors in your decision, that is, the things you
will consider when making your choice. For example, some Factors to be
considered in giving a promotion might be Education, Experience, Appearance,
Personality, Performance Evaluations. The program handles up to 15 Factors.
Next, you assign a Weight to each Factor, depending on its importance. The
Weights can be anywhere from 0 to 10.
Then, you create a list of Candidates under consideration. For example,
some Candidates for a promotion might be Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith, Miss
Jacobs, Mrs. Kowalski. The program handles up to 50 Candidates.
Finally, you assign a Score to each Candidate for each Factor. The scores
can be from 0 to 10, with 10 being perfect and 5 being OK but mediocre.
For example, Mr. Jones might be 7 on Education, 3 on Experience, 8 on
Appearance, 7 on Personality, 9 on Performance Evaluations.
The Weighted Average Decision Maker then looks at each Candidate and
multiplies his Score for each Factor times the Weight of that Factor,
giving a product. These products are accumulated and then divided by the
accumulated Weights to give a Weighted Average Rating for each Candidate.
The Candidate with the best Weighted Average Rating wins!
If you prefer, Cost can be considered separately from the other Factors,
and Cost Efficiency can be calculated for each Candidate. (In these
cases, you might prefer to choose the candidate with the lowest cost
per rating point, provided that candidate meets all requirements.)
Various reports can be generated, displayed to the screen, and printed.
And for licensed users, the reports can be can be saved directly to an
ASCII text file, (using the Report Saver program), and edited separately.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Any PC, XT, AT, 386, 486, 586, OS/2; 256k+; any monitor; any printer;
two floppy disks or a hard drive; DOS 2.11 or later. Runs at DOS
prompt under Windows, etc. Hard drive preferred for unzipping files.
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
1. Using the unzipper of your choice, unzip DECIDE11.ZIP into the
directory of your choice.
Or . . .
2. Create or select a suitable directory, perhaps C:\DECIDE. Then
into this directory, copy the following: DECIDE11.ZIP,
INSTALL.COM, UNZIP.EXE.
Make this directory current (CD C:\DECIDE), then run the INSTALL
file (type INSTALL, then press .)
Now you should be ready to run! Type DECIDE, then press to run
the WEIGHTED AVERAGE DECISION MAKER.
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS
Your objective is to create Decision Charts and produce reports based
on those charts, leading to a decision.
Just follow the prompts and menu selections. (See below.)
MENU SELECTIONS
These are the Main Menu choices, with an explanation of each . . .
Main Menu
1. CREATE A NEW DECISION CHART - This takes you through the entire process
of creating a new Decision Chart. First, you select a decision type.
You may choose from the following list of pre-defined decision types,
or you can create your own from scratch.
Pre-Defined Decision Types
1. Buying A New Car 14. Choosing A Male Lover/Spouse
2. Buying A Used Car 15. Choosing A Female Lover/Spouse
3. Choosing A College 16. Choosing A City To Live In
4. Choosing A Career 17. Choosing A Religion
5. Hiring An Employee 18. Choosing A Church To Attend
6. Promoting An Employee 19. Choosing A Health Plan
7. Buying A New House 20. Choosing A Primary Physician
8. Choosing An Apartment 21. Choosing A Hospital
9. Choosing A New Job 22. Choosing A Dentist
10. The Winning Horse In A Race 23. Choosing A Lawyer
11. The Winning Team In Football 24. Suppliers For Your Business
12. The Winning Team In Baseball 25. Choosing A Health Club
13. The Winning Team In Basketball 26. Choosing A Hobby
27. Choosing A Fraternity/Sorority
After you choose a type of decision, you are prompted to enter a list
of Factors, the Weights for these factors, a list of Candidates, and
the Scores for each of the Candidates.
2. REVISE AN EXISTING DECISION CHART - This gives you a chance to modify a
Decision Chart you have previously started, as shown below . . .
Menu Of Changes
1. Change The List Of Factors
2. Change The Weight Of A Factor
3. Change The List Of Candidates
4. Change The Scores Or Cost For A Candidate
5. Change Name Of Decision Chart Or Type Of Decision
m. Go To Main Menu
(Select by letter or number)
3. LOAD OR SAVE OR DELETE A DECISION CHART
4. VIEW OR PRINT DECISION REPORTS - You can display these types of reports
on your screen and print them with the Shift+PrtSc key combination. In
order to save these reports directly into an ASCII file, you need the
Report Saver program, available to Licensed Users.
Menu
1. Decision Summary Report
2. Candidates, Ranked By Their Weighted Average Ratings
3. Candidates, Ranked By Their Cost
4. Candidates, Ranked By Their Cost Per Rating Point (Cost Efficiency)
5. For Each Factor, The Candidates, Ranked By Their Scores
6. Individual Candidate Reports
7. Complete Report Sequence (Items 1-6, above)
5. Change Colors Of Screen Display - Choose from 10 attractive color
combinations. The light-bar menu allows you to preview each combination
before you select it.
6. N/A
7. Shell To DOS - This lets you jump into DOS to move files around or do
other tasks, then return.
8. Order Licensed Version - Details of the benefits of registration, along
with ordering information.
9. Exit - Close all files and devices; exit to DOS.
ENTERING YOUR MENU SELECTIONS AND OTHER DATA
In some cases, you merely press the number or letter of your choice. This
is true when no menu choice requires more than one character. In
these cases, it is usually possible to get back to the main menu by
pressing the < ESC > key.
If any menu choice requires more than one character, however, you will
need to type the character(s) you want, then press . In these
cases, the key will not work. To get back to the main menu you
will need to type m then press .
SAMPLES OF REPORTS
Here are some samples of reports you can generate . . .
Decision Summary Report
09-17-1994
Decision Name Is: PROMOTE.DEC Decision Type Is: Promoting An Employee
There were 4 Candidates, evaluated on 5 Factors.
Cost and Cost Efficiency were not considered separately.
The top-ranked Candidates in Weighted Average Ratings are shown below:
Rank Candidate Rating Index
1. Mr. Jones 6.97 100.0
2. Mrs. Kowalski 6.19 88.8
3. Miss Jacobs 6.12 87.8
4. Mr. Smith 5.16 74.0
Candidates, Ranked By Their Weighted Average Ratings
Rank Candidate Rating Index
1. Mr. Jones 6.97 100.0
2. Mrs. Kowalski 6.19 88.8
3. Miss Jacobs 6.12 87.8
4. Mr. Smith 5.16 74.0
Candidates, Ranked By Their Cost
Rank Candidate $ Cost Index
1. Mr. Jones 0.00
2. Mr. Smith 0.00
3. Miss Jacobs 0.00
4. Mrs. Kowalski 0.00
Candidates, Ranked By Their Cost Per Rating Point (Cost Efficiency)
Rank Candidate $/Rtng Pnt Index
1. Mr. Jones 0.00
2. Mr. Smith 0.00
3. Miss Jacobs 0.00
4. Mrs. Kowalski 0.00
Candidate Is Mr. Jones Decision Type Is Promoting An Employee
Decision Name Is PROMOTE.DEC Cost Is $ 0.00
Report Date Is 09-17-1994
Factor Weight Score Product Rating
1. Education 6.00 7.00 42.00
2. Experience 5.00 3.00 15.00
3. Appearance 7.00 8.00 56.00
4. Personality 8.00 7.00 56.00
5. Performance Evaluations 6.00 9.00 54.00
Cumwt Cumprod Rating
32.00 223.00 6.97
Cost Per Rating Point Is $ 0.00
. . . and here's a case where cost is a factor:
Decision Summary Report
09-17-1994
Decision Name Is: DOCTOR.DEC Decision Type Is: Choosing A Primary Physician
There were 6 Candidates, evaluated on 4 Factors.
Cost and Cost Efficiency were considered separately.
The top-ranked Candidates in Weighted Average Ratings are shown below:
Rank Candidate Rating Index
1. Dr. Hendricks 7.08 100.0
2. Dr. Kwame Ntamba 6.65 93.9
3. Myers Family Clinic 6.15 86.9
4. Doc Johnson 6.08 85.9
5. Dr. Sampson 5.54 78.2
More data coming . . .
Decision Summary Report - Screen 2
The top-ranked Candidates in Cost are shown below:
Rank Candidate $ Cost Index
1. Doc Johnson 55.00 100.0
2. Dr. Havens 55.00 100.0
3. Dr. Hendricks 60.00 109.1
4. Myers Family Clinic 65.00 118.2
5. Dr. Sampson 75.00 136.4
The top-ranked Candidates in Cost Efficiency are shown below:
Rank Candidate $/Rtng Pnt Index
1. Dr. Hendricks 8.47 100.0
2. Doc Johnson 9.05 106.7
3. Dr. Havens 9.93 117.1
4. Myers Family Clinic 10.57 124.7
5. Dr. Kwame Ntamba 12.78 150.8
CONTENTS OF WEIGHTED AVERAGE DECISION MAKER, VER. 1.1, OCTOBER, 1994
These files are all contained within DECIDE11.ZIP. Some may also be
duplicated on disk outside the .ZIP file.
File Name Function
README.1ST Brief preliminary text file concerning unzipping
the files of this software package and other details.
INSTALL.COM A program file which can be used to unzip
DECIDE11.ZIP.
UNZIP.EXE A "free-to-use" file used by INSTALL.COM, above.
README.DOC General introduction to WEIGHTED AVERAGE DECISION
MAKER. This is what you are reading now.
DECIDE.EXE This is the computer program, in machine language,
ready to run on almost any MS/DOS computer in the
world.
AUTH.BMS This file is the authorization file to DECIDE.EXE.
It holds the encrypted name of the Licensed User,
if any. DECIDE.EXE will not run without it!
BASEBALL.DEC Sample Decision Chart for picking the winner of
a baseball game.
DOCTOR.DEC Sample Decision Chart for selecting a doctor.
DOCTOR.ASC Sample Report Package, based on the DOCTOR.DEC
Decision Chart, above. This is an actual file
produced by the DECISION REPORT SAVER program
which is provided to Licensed Users.
HEALTHCL.DEC Sample Decision Chart for choosing a health club.
PROMOTE.DEC Sample Decision Chart for giving a promotion to
an employee.
PROMOTE.ASC Sample Report Package, based on the PROMOTE.DEC
Decision Chart, above. This is an actual file
produced by the DECISION REPORT SAVER program
which is provided to Licensed Users.
TAKEJOB.DEC Sample Decision Chart for taking a new job.
PRESS.REL This is the press release announcing this release of
WEIGHTED AVERAGE DECISION MAKER.
FILE_ID.DIZ A brief description of DECIDE11.ZIP, for automatic
use by BBS operators and others.
VENDOR.DOC This contains information needed by disk vendors
and other software distributors.
CATALOG.DOC My latest catalog of software for sale, dated 10-2-94.
LATENEWS.DOC Most recent developments and Revision History.
# # #
Yours sincerely,
Rev. Bill McGinnis
Blessings to you. May God help us all.
Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director - LoveAllPeople.org
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