Methods of aggregate assessment in project decisions

Abstract

The paper discusses the following: the preliminary notes, the analysis of preferences as a universal concept of aggregate assessment, the ranking method, the score method, the quotient standardisation method. The preliminary notes give an interpretation of aggregate assessment. It consists in general assessment of the value of an object by combining individual assessment criteria into one entirety. Aggregate assessment has broad applications, in reference to both projects and processes, phenomena, and all types of objects. It is used in diagnostic research and in making decisions (related to, e.g., the selection of the optimum project variant). Then, the analysis of preferences as a universal concept of aggregate assessment is provided. Analysis of preferences in common understanding is a research approach which consists in qualifying objects according to a specific scale, which is expressed in hierarchy of importance of the objects. This part of the text presents also the research process cycle. Its main components are: the object, a set of objects or a system, the values characteristic for the object, assessment criteria, aspects of preferences, the procedure of calculation of the weighted value of the object. Then the ranking method is discussed which is used for qualification of projects (project variants) in the scale of natural numbers. The research workflow in the ranking method is as follows: 1) defining the ranking range, 2) collecting the data for ranking, 3) preferential organising (calculating total ranks, calculating averaged ranks, determining the position of the project in the ranking). Then the score method is discussed along with its special form of the score aggregation. Qualification is done here, unlike in ranking, in the scale of real or integral numbers. The research proceedings in the score aggregation method follows the following steps: determining the universal formula for the weighted value, score standardisation for selection criteria, aggregate assessment (calculation of the IPPi index), categorisation of the IPPi index. The basic text is concluded with the quotient standardisation method discussed. This method is the aggregate approach of the index-based assessment of projects. The essence of quotient standardisation is in unifying values of individual selection criteria by referring them to predefined master values. The central step in this method is calculation of the indexes Zi and Zi*. They constitute the simple or weighted arithmetic mean of the aggregate assessment of the project. The project with the highest index is the optimum solution.