Mixing Multiple Criteria Decision Making with soft systems thinking techniques for decision support in complex situations

Abstract

This paper shares experiences of the authors with combining Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and techniques from soft systems approaches for decision support at particular stages of complex problem solving. These are based on their involvement in three projects within the Information and Communications Technology sector. The justification for the combined use of MCDM and separate techniques from systems thinking is discussed. The contribution of this paper is in the demonstration of how combinations of methods that are parts of soft systems methodologies and MCDM may support multiple perspective representations of complex managerial problems, and in the lessons learned from the three cases.