Introduction to Decision Analysis
Description
Everyone makes decisions, but few people think about how they make those decisions. Decision analysis can help those who are stuck with a tough decision by structuring the problem in terms of alternatives, information and preferences. By doing this, uncertainties and tradeoffs are made explicit and allows decision makers to clarify his or her personal preferences. Thus, important decisions can be faced with greater confidence in areas that run from health to investment.
Decision analysis has grown over the last few decades from a mathematical theory to a powerful discipline used in many industries and professions. Professionals in business, engineering, medicine and other fields find decision analysis to be a powerful way to think through and analyze decision problems involving uncertainty, complexity and time.
Prerequisites
- 1 year of college level calculus (through calculus of several variables, such as CME100)
- Background in statistics, experience with spreadsheets recommended.
- An undergraduate degree with a GPA of 3.0 or equivalent
Topics include
- Distinctions, possibilities, and probabilities
- Buying and selling prices
- Value of information and experimentation
- Relevance and decision diagrams
- Value of information and experimentation
- Risk attitude and assessment of probabilities
- The decision analysis cycle
Each student works on an individual term project with a project mentor. Students in industry often choose a project relevant to their workplace.
Course Availability
The course schedule is displayed for planning purposes – courses can be modified, changed, or cancelled. Course availability will be considered finalized on the first day of open enrollment. For quarterly enrollment dates, please refer to our graduate education section.
