An introduction to the Priority‐Pointing Procedure

1 An Introduction to the Priority-Pointing Procedure Cathal M. Brugha1 University College Dublin, Ireland A qualitative research-based diagnostic procedure, the Priority-Pointing Procedure (PPP) is proposed that synthesises responses to open-ended questions about the direction an organisation should take. It points to a priority for action by measuring imbalances in the numbers of responses in the context of the structure of adjustment decision-making from Nomology. It is shown to be useful for defining variables and structuring criteria for strategic MCDA problems. Keywords: Decision science, Nomology, Adjustment, Management, Systems, Strategy 1. INTRODUCTION A critical activity for any a company is the development of its strategy. Put simply, management want the answer to "what should we do next?". This is a simple question that produces multi-criteria answers. It leads to a pointing towards a priority for action from amongst several alternatives that emerge from the responses. Consequently it is different to the typical MCDA problem that addresses a choice between defined alternatives that have been identified previously. Asking the obvious question directly is a natural and holistic approach to discovering what a company should do. It is easy to ask such a question of several decision-makers. If they are interested in the issue, their answers are likely to be detailed and rich. Also, if they do not have to fit their answers into some predefined model, they are more able to focus on their own thoughts and judgements. On the other hand, there are serious problems associated with such a method. How does one produce usable constructs from unstructured answers? How should one carry out scoring and synthesise multiple scores? Can one keep the procedure simple enough to make it usable in both small and large investigations? How can one rely on the results from a system that uses only the answers to several open questions? One approach is to use cognitive mapping to identify the constructs as Bana e Costa et al (1998, 1999) did to initiate tackling a complex strategic problematic situation faced by the Santa Catarina textile industry in the south of Brazil. They worked extensively with “Points of View” of a variety of sorts including Elementary (EPsV), Key, and Fundamental (FPsV) (Bana e Costa et al, 1999). These were also known as Critical or Key Success Factors C(K)SFs, and were associated with Critical Survival Factors (CSuFs), Key Competitive Factors (KCoFs) and Key Excellence Factors (KExFs) (Bana e Costa et al, 1998). Subsequently, these factors were further divided, added to and structured into a tree using a discussion process, which has been likened to an ‘art’ that is left to the individual ability of the facilitator (Ackermann and Belton, 1994). This means that the tree constructed from the FPsV was uncertain. Brugha (1998a) has shown that different criteria trees for the same problem produce considerably different criteria weights. Consequently, although cognitive mapping produces many constructs, it does not provide a safe bridge towards a robust scoring system. This issue will be revisited in Section 6. Ormerod (1995) also used cognitive mapping for the first phase of a strategic project to develop an information systems strategy at Sainsbury’s. This work involved individual interviews with members of a steering committee following which cognitive maps were drawn, and a two-day workshop was held whose results were documented and published in a book. The key deliverable was a map of the overall business that was used to identify areas for further investigation for systems opportunities. Cognitive mapping provided powerful insights, stimulated discussion, and helped with the exploration of the interaction between objectives and strategies and competition between companies. It also captured the elements of the business strategy as perceived by the Board of Sainsbury’s. The decision-advisors 1 Correspondence: E-mail: [email protected] C.M. Brugha, Department of M.I.S., University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. 2 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure (Morley and Ormerod, 1996) felt that the work to ensure that different viewpoints were incorporated fairly and constructively may have been excessive. Both Ormerod and Bana e Costa et al took their use of cognitive mapping from Colin Eden who introduced it into Operational Research (Eden & Jones, 1984). Eden started with repertory grids and moved over to cognitive mapping because it was much less annoying to respondents (Brown, 1992). Combined with the software developed to implement it, first COPE and later Decision Explorer, it became an intervention tool that enables the analysis of complexity and the surfacing of the expertise and wisdom of team members in problem solving meetings (Eden, 1988; 1992). Eden used cognitive mapping for group exploration of decisions to help develop a consensus. The considerable effort building the cognitive map was justified because it was used extensively as a forum for the whole discussion process. Bana e Costa et al and Ormerod used it only to develop constructs for input into other MCDA techniques. Might there be a simpler approach to the development of constructs that both requires less effort and produces criteria trees that are less uncertain? To address that question we should return to the concept underlying cognitive mapping. Eden’s version of cognitive mapping derives from Kelly’s (1955) theory of Personal Constructs that made a major contribution to the theory and practice of psychotherapy (Bannister & Fransella, 1971). Kelly’s background as a mathematics and physics undergraduate who later practised briefly as an aeronautics engineer in stress analysis influenced his theory and also led to his interest in measurement (Fransella, 1995). He developed the Repertory Grid Technique as a measurement tool that uses an individual’s personal constructs as variables. This has been used for qualitative research (EasterbySmith et al, 1991) and evaluated by Stewart and Stewart (1981) who outline its advantages and disadvantages. Its advantages make it very suitable for MCDA. It involves verbalising constructs which would otherwise remain hidden; it is based on the individual’s own framework, not that of the expert; and it provides insights for both the researcher and the researched. Nevertheless, its disadvantages militate against its usefulness for MCDA. Completing grids is very hard work and timeconsuming. It requires a degree of skill from the interviewer if the interviewee’s construct framework is to be fully explored. Grids may be difficult to analyse and interpret. Sometimes the technique is used mechanistically while forgetting the underlying theory of personal constructs. While cognitive mapping may be an improvement on repertory grids it still reminiscent of its faults. Kelly considered both quantitative methods, e.g. repertory grids, and qualitative methods equally valid for eliciting personal constructs (Bannister & Fransella, 1971). He particularly recommended a technique he called self-characterisation (Bannister & Fransella, 1971, p.57) which was based on ‘Kelly’s first principle’: ‘if you don’t know what is wrong with a patient, ask him, he may tell you’. (Kelly indicated that he would prefer to be remembered for his first principle than for the invention of the psychology of personal constructs.) Bannister and Fransella (1971, p. 152) suggest that the automatic use of the grid “as their primary method” by workers within the field of construct theory has been an inadequate or distorted development. They suggest that “construct theory is potentially rich as an inspiration for new ‘instrumental inventions’, but as yet our inventiveness has only gone a little way beyond the point to which Kelly took us”. The technique presented below responds to Bannister and Fransella’s challenge. It applies Kelly’s first principle directly by starting with asking decision-makers questions such what is wrong with the company, or what should be done to solve the problem. It also follows French’s (1992) suggestion to “reach for a simple model and see what an analysis based on that brings”. We start with some theory showing that the clustering of answers to simple questions such as “what should be done?” always has one particular structure. 2 DECISION SCIENCE STRUCTURES The common factor that all systems and models have is that they involve abstractions. Abstracting involves clustering ideas and forming language. Such systems can be used to consider relationships between objects, which may then be tested empirically. Any system that is used as a testing framework to evaluate research done in a variety of other systems must be able to operate at a very high level of abstraction. Such testing need not always be done on empirical data. Usually it is done indirectly by evaluating how well the findings of other people's research and discussions fit some meta-system. Such will be the case in this paper’s consideration of answers to open-ended questions. However, it raises a chicken-and-egg problem. How does one know that one has a good meta-system? Good research can 3 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure lead to a good system, which can then help to evaluate further research. A bad system could distort the findings of good research. An underlying principle of studies of all sorts is that there exist regularities in human behaviour or societal processes that are common to all fields of decision. To discover these regularities it is necessary to explore deep structure within decision-making. Synthesising and formalising the results of such an exploration requires some kind of framework or meta-system. It would help if such a metasystem had support from a variety of fields, not just empirical research. Critical Realism (CR) (Bhaskar, 1978) is a formal method for investigating deep structure that distinguishes between three layers of the world of research. These are the empirical in which conclusions are drawn from research data, the actual which is bound by the context of its own situation, and the real which is the important layer that drives the other two. The real layer contains regularities in the behaviour of systems that operate as tendencies at a deep level. Mearman (1999) has reviewed the elements of CR research into these regularities and suggests that they comprise observation, abstraction, retroduction, elaboration of abstractions, scrutinisation of theories, and elimination of explanations. The assumption behind “retroduction” is that the underlying dynamics of any system appear in the output of quality research as partial or incomplete “regularities” that, when combined with others, can be used to discover the systems rules. C.S. Peirce (1867) called this concept abduction and described it as “studying facts and devising a theory to explain them”. The “abstraction” aspect indicates that the research should be viewed as relating to levels that are deeper than the empirical and the actual. Two extensions of this abstraction concept are incorporated in Nomology, the study of the decision-making processes of the mind (Brugha, 1998b; Hamilton, 1877). One extension is to explore how these regularities go beyond that of the particular field of study, in this case MCDA, into general decision-making by combining them with similar regularities found in other fields. The other extension is to extract these regularities into specific dis-aggregated axioms and principles. Nomology is based on the premise that intelligent beings’ choices tend to follow a common set of simple decision rules. Thus if several different fields of human activity have similar categorisations of some type of behaviour, then it is more likely than not that they emerge from the same common decision structure. This follows from Ockam’s Razor that, if there are two plausible explanations for something, the simpler explanation is more likely to be the correct one (William of Ockam, 1993). The author first discovered that the same structure always appears when clustering responses by managers to open-ended questions such as "what should be done to solve Dublin's traffic problem?" (Brugha, 1974). Although this appears to be a totally open question, he discovered that decisionmakers always answer it by selecting from a series of alternative adjustments. Extensive trawls of similar qualitative structures based further applications of the same technique (e.g. Brugha, 1986) or established systems which were founded on empirical evidence indicated that all qualitative structures that were concerned with adjustment were usually based on four or eight factors. Some of these were connected with culture, such as Hofstede’s cross-cultural study (1980) which reported that cultures tended to differ on four main dimensions of uncertainty avoidance, individualism, power distance and masculinity. See Brugha (1998b) for examples used in management. The fact that the same clustering pattern always occurs both in management practice and with empirical data is no accident. It reveals a dynamic to do with an approach to problem solving that applies at various levels of abstraction. From analysis of many such surveys it became clear that decision-makers were addressing their many different problems with the same approach based on asking questions that had dichotomous answers. The first question they addressed was “what kind of problem was it?”; had it more to do with uncertainty and consequently planning, or was it more about putting plans into effect? At the next level down, the second question was “where was the focus of the problem?”; was it more with the people involved or more with the “place” associated with the problem, i.e. the systems, structures, management, etc.? These two sets of dichotomies give rise to four general kinds of activities and a dynamic flow between them. Thus if someone is faced with a problem they start first in a planning mode. Within planning they generally first propose something that fits their own place or system. After that, they move into planning amongst people, i.e. they develop a perception about it. They then move into a more certain frame of mind and emphasise putting ideas and plans into effect. Initially they work more with people, pulling them to go along with what they think is right, and finally they return to the place of the organisation to push new systems and structures into effect. The “what” question provides the first level of a tree; the “where” question provides the second level (Figure 1). Generic names and descriptions have been developed to help to understand these patterns in any particular case. Names starting with the letter “p” have been used to emphasise that these are generic labels of clusters, and 4 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure should not be interpreted using a dictionary. For example, the difference between “planning” and “putting” depends purely on whether the activity is more or less uncertain. Planning is not seen as cerebral and inactive. Putting does not require a ready-made plan. This linguistic innovation is intended to help the decision-advisor to understand the decision processes in the mind of the decisionmakers. In any application a decision-advisor should use the language of the decision-makers about the particular case rather than expose them to these nomologically technical terms. Figure 1. The four general kinds of activity 3. THE PRINCIPAL ADJUSTMENT ACTIVITIES The four general kinds of activity break down into eight principal activities on the basis of a further question, “which way should be used?” (Figure 2). Whenever an organisation is challenged or threatened by some new situation the first response is to propose some solution. Those who are in place in the organisation, who have control over the resources, usually will first try some solution that does not involve too many other people. The combination of a proposition activity that is done using one's position (i.e. the control one has over resources, people or influence) is described as pounce, a sudden shift in direction of resources or emphasis that has not been widely discussed or agreed. The other extreme on the dimension of which way to solve a problem is by focus on the person instead of on one's position. If a pounce solution is inadequate then go "in person" to those who are in place in the organisation and see how the problem affects the work that they do. So, a proposition activity that is centred on the activities of each person involved would be directed at improving the procedure whereby the problem is usually solved. There should be a procedure for handling every eventuality and, where a new or different type of situation arises, setting up a new procedure should be considered. Frequently, working with the procedures for sorting out new problems fails to deal with a situation, presumably because it is bigger, or newer or more complex than can be handled by proposing some solution. If so, it will be necessary to develop a better perception of what is going on. The initial preference is to use some objective measure of what people think. The kind of question that is asked is "how does this affect our position?" "This" might mean a currency crisis, a new product from the competitor, a technology change. It relates to one's standing as measured by using some objective guideline. "What would people be prepared to pay to ensure the continuation of this activity?" The combination of a perception activity that is found through examining one's position (i.e. in some market or competition for resources) is described as the price that people are willing to pay. The other extreme within the perception activity is to focus on the person instead of on one's position. There is a capacity within the person to internalise all the information that has been accrued from pounce, procedure and price activities, and synthesise them into some new direction for the organisation. Each person can be asked to make proposals and, through some group process, a combined view can be formulated. Thus, a perception activity that encapsulates the wisdom of each 5 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure person involved could lead to the development of a new policy. There are many situations where there are no clearly spelt-out rules, particularly in uncertain or changing environments. Broader statements of intention, or policies, can provide clear direction without over-constraining the person's behaviour. The formation of policy is the summit of the planning activities. Once the policy for dealing with the problem has been decided upon then the balance moves from favouring planning to favouring putting. This is the point that is furthest away from the centre of control within the organisation. Here the location of activity is amongst people and the approach used is based on the person. Figure 2. The principal activities The next step brings in the first of the putting activities. As with policy this is also based on people and the focus is also on the person, so the demands of the change are not excessive. Having developed the policy and got it agreed, now it is necessary to pull the people into line. Initially the focus is on the person instead of on one's position. It is about motivation, leadership, persuading people to implement the policy. Each person needs to be persuaded individually, or as part of a team, to focus on a target. Thus, a pull activity that emphasises primarily the involvement of each individual person corresponds to promotion. As promotion is the first step of the putting activities, all issues to do with it should be raised and discussed amongst the people. If the benefits of using promotion are beginning to diminish it is necessary to go to the other extreme on the issue of how to carry out the pull activity, i.e. on the dimension between person versus position. The focus changes to using an objective measure of the contribution to the agreed goal. The combination of a pull activity that is found through examining one's position (i.e. in some market or competition for resources) is described as the productivity of the people or departments in the organisation. In the tree-diagram (Figure 2) of the activities, using the planning / putting axis, just as promotion is a mirror image of policy, so is productivity a mirror image of price. The kinds of questions 6 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure that are asked under productivity are similar to those asked under price. "How does this or that contribution improve our position?" Here it becomes "how does it help achieve our purpose?". The nature of the putting activity then changes from a pull to a push activity aimed at the structures and practices of the organisation that require changing. Being the first of the place activities the power of those "in place" is at its least. If the pull activities, with all their emphasis on getting people to work for the common goal, have shown up some faults or weaknesses in the institutional structures and methods, then now is the best opportunity to impose or push through any changes. So, the first focus is on the person instead of on one's position. Through examining each person's informal relationships within the organisation it may be possible to define a better formal structure that reflects the new directions and targets. Correspondingly, a push activity that re-orientates the place to correspond to the needs of each person involved is dependent on the pliability 2 of the organisation and its structures. A lack of pliability, which is often typical of state structures, of large organisations, and of institutions with a long tradition, can be a significant stumbling block to progress in an organisation. Fitting the structures to the current needs leads to greater focus and a clarification of any difficulties with putting plans into effect. Once the structures are in place it is important to not continue adapting them. At the other extreme on the position / person axis, the combination of a push activity that is done using one's position is described as practice, the ongoing administration of the work of the organisation in a regular way. The emphasis is on using one's position to put usual solutions in place. In contrast to pounce those who have control over resources will try the most appropriate solution that experience and the regulations indicate and which does not involve too many other people, and this should usually succeed in solving the problem. This completes a cycle of activities; just as policy represented the summit of planning, practice represents it for the putting side. Planning starts in the place of the organisation with various propositions and moves to the people looking for perceptions of what to do. Putting starts with the people by trying to pull them together and towards some goal and finishes back in place trying to push through the various plans. If the practitioners fail to achieve the objective the cycle starts again. See Brugha (1998c) for some examples of these principal activities used in management including Peters and Waterman’s (1982) eight criteria of excellent companies, from which McKinsey’s 7 Ss (Waterman, 1982) was developed. In an adjustment decision cycle the decision-maker will, typically, use each of the eight principal activities initially in its pure form and focus on increasing the energy devoted to that activity. The decision-maker then has to judge when the benefits of using an activity are beginning to drop. This is a pragmatic decision and is taken in the context of the possible benefits that can come from other activities, particularly the next one in the cycle. The importance of power is central to the system. The energy or power within an adjustment system comes from a tension between opposites arising from the many dichotomies that can occur within this system. The coexistence of opposite energies is a healthy indicator of a powerful system. An imbalance, i.e. the disregard for one side of a pair seems to be a cause of a leakage or dissipation of power. This dichotomy is based on a tension between punch, the need to have sufficient support for some activity, and prevention, the need to ensure that no activity is used excessively. Punch and prevention are two alternative processes that are available to management to use when dealing with any situation. As the cycle through the eight principal activities progresses, the tendency at first is to give each activity sufficient punch for it to have effect. This corresponds to the decision-maker favouring this activity in its pure form. As the benefits from using this activity wear out the prevention energy grows leading to a move onto the next activity in the cycle. This is a pragmatic decision and is taken in the context of the possible benefits that can come from other activities, particularly the next one in the cycle. Thus, the purist likes to see a particular activity done properly and thoroughly and motivates the punch energy. By contrast, the pragmatist is more concerned with moving on, with trying other approaches, with preventing excessive use of any one energy (see Figure 3). The question of whether to use a power increasing process (punch / purist) or a power controlling process (prevention / pragmatic) arises within each of the eight principal activities and generates sixteen different processes from which a manager could choose when faced with any problem. The word ‘pliability’ is not as obviously an activity as some of the others. Adjustment activities should be viewed as tools that are characterised in response to a question. “What is the company’s pliability, or what is the company’s practice with regard to this problem?" In the case of pliability this would mean “how flexible is the company, or how amenable is it to change?”. 2 7 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure Figure 3. Suggestions of solutions to Dublin's transportation problem 4. ADJUSTMENT BY GROUPS In this article we are particularly interested in the adjustment processes of coherent groups of people, such as those with executive responsibility in companies and non-commercial organisations. The basis of the procedure described below is a survey of the adjustment opinions of people in such groups. The members of the group are asked several open-ended questions about what should be done to solve some problem. Each answer is allocated to a sector in the circle in Figure 3. The accumulation of all the answers is then interpreted to see what the imbalances in the answers indicate the group feels about the problem. When people are asked general questions they usually give positive answers. A lot of negative answers would point to a block in the dynamic flow from one activity to another. Also, adjustment theory suggests (Axiom 18: Brugha, 1998c) that the most dynamic organisation has a high tolerance for and a large spread of usage and balance between the various activities it uses. This is controlled by the punch and prevention processes, which correspond to providing a balance between a pure and a pragmatic approach to each activity. Progress is achieved by allowing a fluidity of movement between different activities, exploring each for what it can give. No particular process is either frowned upon or allowed to dominate. Consequently, an imbalance in the responses of the group should act as a symptom of any blocks that are hidden within the system. This leads to the next axiom in Nomology, which focuses on the idea that the main decision-makers in any well-defined group form their ideas in some organic fashion3 . Axiom 25: The key participants in a management system can be perceived to have a "corporate mind" which can be accessed by an open-ended questioning system. The justification for this axiom comes from empirical evidence of the agreement amongst decisionmakers about the constructs. Let us, for the moment, differentiate three aspects of the model, the structure, the constructs and the weights or scores. For this kind of MCDA problem the structure is always the same. This facilitates communication between group members as they develop the constructs or language with which they express their preferences. Most of the applications of the PPP to date have gone to three levels as in Figure 2. One case went to only two levels as in Figure 1. That is, the respondents answered in terms of only four constructs. This coincided with a very weak sense of community amongst the members who responded and a lack of interest in the survey. The original The numbering of the two new axioms in this paper follows on from those in previous papers on Nomology (Brugha 1998a, b and c). 3 8 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure Dublin transport problem that is used below to describe the procedure went to four levels as in Figure 3. This may be partly because the survey was administered by interview; the other cases were administered by post; (internal mail is the method most commonly used now). The success of the transport case was probably more because of the deep commitment of the senior transport executives to their work, and their strong convictions about how to solve the problem. To be able to use the sixteen constructs in this case, i.e. pure and pragmatic versions of the eight main constructs, meant that the decision-makers had developed that language over a long period of intense interaction with their colleagues. This particular community of seventeen respondents were senior decision-makers working mainly in different institutions and not in daily contact with each other. In answering they gave the impression that they were giving their personal view in relation to that of the rest of the group. In that sense they seemed to know the “corporate mind” of the group, and were emphasising adjustments that they wanted to happen. Some of the adjustment axioms (from Brugha, 1998b, 1998c) are now reiterated, but this time expressed in the context of such surveys. Axiom 4a: The answers to open-ended questions put to key participants in a healthy and dynamic system will have an inbuilt tendency to find a balance between all the relevant dichotomies. This arises because adjustment decision-making is about remedying imbalances in an organisation’s decisions. Consequently, each construct can be seen as an instrument for fine-tuning the system to ensure that it does not focus too much on a few of its strengths, thereby becoming out of balance. A cross-section of decision-makers should bring to the process a variety of points of view. If the organisation is in a healthy state then one or two answers should not dominate the responses. Axiom 18a: The answers to open-ended questions put to key participants in a most dynamic organisation will show a high spread of differentiation between different activities and a high tolerance for different processes. If an organisation has a very serious adjustment problem, this will emerge in the survey as a major imbalance. Normally one should expect a happily progressing organisation to be moving forward rapidly and using all the activities. These work clockwise in the cycle shown in Figure 3. If there is a less serious problem this will usually exhibit itself in terms of a block to this cyclical process and should be apparent from the survey. Axiom 17a: The answers to open-ended questions put to key participants in a system which has a problem will be indicated in terms of the eight principal activities in the cycle and its failure to move onto the next one in the sequence. 5. THE PROCEDURE The basis of the procedure came from the idea that highly experienced full-time transport decisionmakers, whether they were conscious of it or not, were mental modellers of the decision making process that was needed to find a solution to the traffic problem (Brugha, 1974). The steps described below reflect the experience derived from this and many other applications of this procedure. 5.1. Define the objective The objective should be presented in the form of a problem or challenge, for example “to solve Dublin’s traffic problem”. If several questions are to be asked they should be focused on the same objective and should not reflect different objectives, such as “best for the company”, “improve performance”, “get a better position in our markets”, even if the decision advisor thinks that these are important subobjectives. The initial meeting with the client should be spent ensuring that the client understands the procedure and that the single objective defined by them reflects what the organisation really wants to achieve at this time. 9 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure 5.2. Identify the respondents The respondents should have an overview of the problem, and be actively involved in and committed to its solution. Some business applications have involved only five or six respondents. In such cases one should try to include all the decision-makers that have responsibility for the situation under review. In the Dublin transportation case the seventeen most senior executives with executive roles in transport planning affecting the Dublin region were selected on the advice of an expert in a planning institute. In a case about the Irish economy (Brugha, 1986) thirty-two chief executives with proven records as leaders of business also with a publicly demonstrated interest in improving the Irish economy responded (out of fifty selected) to a postal questionnaire consisting of six open-ended questions. 5.3. Survey method and questionnaire The Dublin transportation respondents were interviewed personally using a semi-structured approach. There were a variety of types of questions. Included in the questionnaire were two totally open-ended questions "what should be done to solve Dublin's traffic problem?" (punch) and "what is holding back the solution to Dublin's traffic problem?" (prevention). These were asked twice, in different ways and at different times in the interview, leading to 53 out of a possible 68 answers from the 17 respondents which are summarised in Figure 3; not all answered each question. The currently used method is based on six open-ended questions. It was devised for the economy survey (Brugha, 1986). The brevity of the questionnaire appeared to help ensure a high response from the chief executives. Two questions were general and the other four were specific to the four sectors of activity: Proposition, Perception, Pull and Push. They were divided half each into punch and prevention questions and are given as follows. General Punch Question: “What should be a priority in a national programme to solve our economic problems?” General Prevention Question: “In your opinion, what is the most significant factor hindering economic progress?” Prevention Question in the Proposition Sector: “What is preventing our institutions from coping adequately with these problems?” Punch Question in the Perception Sector: “What should be done to increase understanding of our economic problems and how to solve them?” Prevention Question in the Pull Sector: “What is holding us back from working together to solve our problems?” Punch Question in the Push Sector: “Would you suggest any particular institutional change that could contribute greatly to solving our problems?” The sectoral questions should be drafted with care and pilot-tested. They must relate clearly to the objective, be expressed in colloquial language familiar to the respondent, relate specifically to that sector, and be completely open and unbiased. This postal mode is the one most used currently. Respondents answer them privately and without reference to the views of colleagues. It takes about ten to fifteen minutes. If they find a question difficult to answer they are asked to pass to the next question. Questions are asked in each of the four sectors in order to get a deeper insight into the imbalances in the thinking of the groups. To save respondent annoyance usually either a punch a prevention question is asked in each sector. It was thought that this imbalance could create a distortion. A recent larger study, a replication of the original transport study, indicates that this imbalance does not seem to affect the overall conclusion. The result of the study usually points to one of the activities. Frequently, the contents of the answers to the question asked in this sector provide the material for the summary conclusion about the priority for action. Experience with numerous cases indicates that respondents tend to put a lot of intense effort into their answers, even if it is over a short time period. In none of the cases was there any dissatisfaction about the shortness of the questionnaire. 5.4. Survey interpretation and variable definition The output of the transport survey was a diverse set of views. Adjustment theory (Brugha, 1998b and c) was developed in order to make coherent sense of the results. As a research approach this falls most strictly into the theory generation category of Grounded Theory. It satisfies all of their eight criteria (Glaser and Strauss, 1967, p. 118). Clustering similar answers together revealed a pattern. Analysis of the responses to the above questions showed that they fell into sixteen categories based on the nature of the process being supported by the respondent. These are given in the outer circle of Figure 3 with, for each of the principal activities, the punch response given first and the prevention response given second. This order reflects the clock-wise cyclical dynamic of the process: first an activity is considered in its pure form, then a more pragmatic attitude is taken to it before moving onto the next activity. 10 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure Table 1. Principal transport activities and descriptions Activity Pounce Transport Term Short-term solutions Procedure Continuing study process Price Operation of the pricing system Policy Development of policy Promotion Public involvement Relationship between decision-makers and operations Reformulating the system Productivity Pliability Practice Operation of the system Description It concerned the need for short-term and localised solutions in preference to delays, while recognising the need to be aware of the irreversibility of infrastructural developments. This referred to the need for comprehensive research, development, feedback and evaluation, balanced by the need to recognise the inability to do other than optimise. This related to the need to eliminate the defects in the public transport pricing system, while recognising the inability to implement a perfect pricing system. This concerned the need for planning to be based on agreed policies and goals, while recognising the importance of the changing preferences of the community. This related to the need for more public involvement, while ensuring that the public does not frustrate development. This referred to the need to have decision-makers close to operations, and to the need to have decisions at a level high enough to be both effective and competent. It concerned the need for sufficient support for a reformulation of the administrative system controlling transportation in Dublin. This was balanced by concern that there would be sufficient capacity in the super-system, i.e. the government and legislature, to produce real improvements in the structures. This referred to the need for sufficient resources to alleviate transportation needs using the existing systems, and the need for sufficient capability in the system to manage these resources well. Table 1 gives the eight principal activities that were found expressed in the language of the transport study. For each criterion the punch and prevention processes are included. These sixteen issues provided the language within which transport discussions and arguments tended to take place at that time. Differences between points of view seemed to be more about emphasis on what to do, i.e. about the appropriate mix to use of the sixteen corresponding processes. Usually the answers were given in positive terms, such as "there is a great need for funding for the bus system". This clearly supports a punch process, i.e. channelling more power into funding buses. On the other hand, some were offered in negative terms, such as "extending rapid-rail through underground tunnelling would be a waste of money". This response should be interpreted as criticising, or negating, a punch process. So, for each of the sixteen processes there could be both positive and negative responses, making thirty-two possible different answers or opinions. The variables described in Table 1 are differentiated from each other using the structure described in Figure 2. This means that the corresponding clusters do not overlap each other, and so can be described as "qualitatively independent". Consequently they could be used as the input to a simple multi-criteria analysis procedure that counts the number of responses at different levels of abstraction. Because the principal adjustment activities form a complete set, any adjustment response must fall into one of the eight categories. Nevertheless, the biggest difficulty with the procedure is the allocation of answers to the categories that emerge as the responses are synthesised. The method developed over many cases has been to allocate the easier ones first. Then the more difficult ones are checked with a colleague. To make the most difficult allocations one uses Figure 3 and allocates the answer on the basis of dichotomies. Is it more planning or putting, more place or people, etc.? Sometimes it helps to look at the respondents’ answers to other questions to clarify what they meant. The result of the PPP is a pointing to one activity as the priority or next step that management should address. The cluster of answers that were allocated to that activity, or possibly two activities, are then synthesised in the language of the responses and presented to the respondents. 11 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure 5.5. Synthesis and analysis The spread of answers by senior executives involved in urban transportation in Dublin (Figure 3) shows significant imbalances in terms of their selection from the sixteen processes that represented their menu of alternatives. See Brugha (1974) for a summary of the content. The first dichotomy, planning (26) versus putting (27) showed almost no imbalance. Subsequent dichotomies show more imbalances, starting with between place (44) and people (9). Within that, the imbalance was more on the putting side: with push (24) compared with pull (3). Within the push sector the pliability activity had a very significant imbalance between punch (9) and prevention (1). The imbalances appeared to point in the direction of pliability, i.e. the need for sufficient support for a reformulation of the administrative system. This result was consistent with the main finding of the study, which remains an intractable problem to this day. The biggest barrier to the solution of Dublin's transport problems was the division of responsibility for transport planning between the Department of the Environment, which controls roads planning, and the Department of Transport, which has responsibility for most things to do with transport except roads. The numbers involved in the above diagnosis appear to be very small, suggesting that the findings insignificant. On the other hand, this result came from the most senior executives involved in transport planning in Dublin, answering open questions freely and without communicating with their colleagues. The fact that their answers went to the fourth level of dichotomies indicates their depth of interest and commitment. Furthermore, according to the rules of Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss, p. 30) in this case the requirement of large numbers does not apply. Adjustment theory suggests that where there is a problem with some particular activity, i.e. a lack of energy (punch) or a block (prevention) a slowing down of the system will occur. In the Dublin transport problem there appeared to be a block at the pliability activity (10 responses). There was an inability to integrate the planning of roads and transport at government level. Their responses indicated that participants were attempting to ignore the problem and move to the next two activities: practice (14 responses) and pounce (15). It is relevant that respondents did not think the problem was in the previous productivity sector, i.e. it would be pointless to try and improve the productivity of decisionmaking within a system that was frustratingly inflexible. The biggest block (in the author's opinion) may have centred on the pliability-prevention issue (one response), which was the concern that there would be sufficient capacity in the super-system, i.e. the government and legislature, to produce real improvements in the structures governing transportation in Dublin. Let us review the procedure in the light of this example. The primary diagnostic method is to seek the greatest imbalances, e.g. (Figure 3) push versus pull, then pliability versus productivity, and then, within pliability, punch versus prevention. The secondary diagnostic method is to accept the view of the greater number, e.g. push rather than pull, and then practice rather than pliability. Notice the conflict that can arise between the primary and secondary methods. The tertiary method is by content analysis. All three methods should be done together to resolve any differences. Sometimes decision-makers choose “wrongly” out of frustration, making the secondary method a less secure method of pointing to a problem. In the transport case decision-makers bypassed the pliability activity and answered in practice and pounce because they had “given up” on the politicians’ ability to reform the system. This leads to the following axiom. Axiom 26: The "corporate mind" of the key participants in a management system will usually identify the problem by the imbalances in their answers, but may not always be correct in their identification of the solution. The importance of this axiom is that it differentiates the PPP from a simple polling of views. In the economy survey and in most recent applications six questions are asked. These provide further information and help to deal with this problem of “incorrectly identified” problems. In the economy case, and in other subsequent cases, the problem identified in axiom 26 occurred only with the general pounce question. The most obvious question became the focus of decision-maker frustration and, hence, produced the most unreliable answers. 12 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure 5.6. Measuring imbalances Imbalances in the scores are measured as follows. Where a dichotomy is being compared a sample proportion is used. For two scores to be in balance the expected proportion should be 0.5. One score divided by the total for the two clusters being compared gives the sample proportion. The proportion can be converted to a t-score with n-1 degrees of freedom where n is the number of responses as follows: t= pˆ − p = p (1 − p ) n pˆ − 0.5 = (2 * p − 1) * n 0.5(1 − 0.5) n The push (24) versus pull (3) dichotomy gives a proportion = 24/27. This converts into t = 4.04. For 26 degrees of freedom and a significance level of 0.005 or 99.5%, the cut-off t-score is 2.78. The pliability (10) versus productivity (0) dichotomy gives t = 3.16. For 9 degrees of freedom and a significance level of 0.005 or 99.5%, the cut-off t-score is 3.25. The sampling distribution of the proportion approximates to a normal distribution and is usable when there are at least 5 responses in each category, which is not the case here. Statistical significance is not normally sought with this procedure; it could be useful in the context of some automated scoring using software. Sometimes a pairwise test is inadequate for showing an unusual stress on one category. Where we wish to measure imbalances amongst the (four) sectors of activity or the (eight) particular activities a chi-square measure is taken using the difference between the actual and the expected scores (based on the null hypothesis of no imbalance between activities). Using the same significance level, corresponding chi-square cut-off points are 12.838 for sectors of activity (three degrees of freedom) and 20.278 for particular activities (seven degrees of freedom). Different sets of combinations can be used. If we focus on the two largest numbers 14 for practice and 15 for pounce, these can be called the pure place sector (29) (see Figure 3). Then the pure planning sector has 7, pure people 7 and pure putting 10. These produce a significant chi-square score of 25.41. Doing it for the eight activities gives a chi-square score of 33.79, which is also significant. 5.7. Feedback to participants An essential part of the procedure is the feedback to respondents of a synthesis of the main response in one paragraph expressed in their own language or terminology. In cases so far this paragraph has served as a focus for consensus for participants. In the transportation case the need to integrate transport planning into one government department was accepted generally. The implementation problem still remains. 6. USE OF THE PROCEDURE FOR PROBLEM STRUCTURING The priority-pointing procedure, as described above, has been applied to situations as varied as UCD's Graduate Business School and the training of novices in a religious order. It is used as a form of initial screening of a problem to identify the one or two priorities that the management of an organisation should address. Its success, its simplicity and its rigorous foundation in decision science suggest that it could be used also as an initial screening and problem structuring tool in the developing fields of soft operational research (O.R.) and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). Application of the PPP could help to reduce the viable alternatives to a few that could be considered in depth. We focus here on the problem structuring issue in the light of Nomology and the idea that decision-makers have a corporate mind. Consider Figures 1 and 2 as criteria trees. Brugha (1998a) has suggested that criteria trees should be structured top-down by breaking clusters into sub-clusters, and scored bottom-up. Brugha (2000, 1998a) has suggested that the importance of criteria should be scored relative to one another. We now take this a step further. If decision-makers are to be asked to score the importance of the activities in the criteria tree, this should be done in a way that reflects how the decision-maker’s mind has constructed the criteria. Correspondingly, the importance weights should be allocated bottom-up within each section of the tree, focusing on the dichotomies, producing weights that are fed upwards to the next level. This could be done in pairs or in groups of four as in Figure 1. 13 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure The most important issue would be to respect qualitative homogeneity, i.e. that decision-makers would be asked to compare like with like, and thus relate their scoring to the individual dichotomies. This would exclude the creation of clusters that were arbitrary mixes of activities, such as combining a proposition cluster with a productivity cluster. It would also exclude comparing clusters over different levels, such as comparing the importance of a perception cluster against that of a pliability cluster. We now consider how the PPP would have helped in the case described earlier (Bana e Costa et al, 1998, 1999). Obviously it would have saved a lot of the effort spent on cognitive mapping. Might it have achieved a similar output? The Key Points of View in that case (see Figure 3 in Bana e Costa et al, 1999) have been interpreted using the adjustment structure and presented in Table 2. They all relate to a central point of view: “Company is selling all its production ... is having difficulty selling”. How well they fit seven out of the eight primary activities, both individually and collectively, is further evidence of the appropriateness of the adjustment structure for problems about strategy Table 2. Key and fundamental points of view fitted into the adjustment system Activity Pounce Key Points of View Fundamental Points of View Procedure Product fits the company’s market ... doesn’t. Good reputation ... seen as dishonest. Good management ... managers don’t see the future. Clients satisfaction ... dissatisfaction. Efficient distribution of products ... inefficient. Flexible and active organisation ... not responding to the market. Constant sales level ... variable. Information gathering Keeping costs in line with competitors’ Competitive product pricing Company reputation E S P S S Product differentiation Customers perceive high quality Delivery service Distribution system P P P E S Price Policy Promotion Productivity Pliability Practice S The authors report that decision-makers were not happy that the issues of Information and Price had been included adequately. Applying adjustment concepts to the discussion in Bana e Costa et al (1998) it would appear that the procedure issue should have been broken into a pure version to do with information gathering, and a pragmatic version to do with keeping costs in line with competitors’. The idea is that the company should gather information to ensure that the product fits the market, but is mainly concerned with keeping costs in line with those of competitors. Likewise the price issue should have divided into a pure version to do with competitive product pricing, and a pragmatic version to do with company reputation. The company wants its prices to be competitive, but does not want to do anything to harm its reputation. Instead, decision-makers included Information and Price as additional FPsV in the tree of fundamental points of view (Figure 5, Bana e Costa et al, 1999). A week after the main discussions the promotion activity, i.e. clients satisfaction rather than dissatisfaction, was considered separately and, following the advice of an expert, became divided into three, Differentiation, Quality and Delivery Service (see the discussion around Figures 7, 9 and 10, Bana e Costa et al, 1998). Again, fitting these into the adjustment framework would suggest that (Product) Differentiation and (Customers Perceive High) Quality were pure and pragmatic versions of the promotion activity. Here the idea is that clients’ satisfaction depends on having a lot of different products, but not at the expense of product quality. Also, it appears that Delivery Service should have been clustered with Distribution System as pure and pragmatic versions of the productivity activity. Customers should get a good delivery service, within the constraint of an efficient delivery system. This means that the tree of eleven FPsV may have consisted of eight clusters at the “16” level and three at the “8” level. So, when they were asked to compare FPsV to give scores, decision-makers were not comparing similar levels of clustering. 14 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure Another problem with their tree is how it combines clusters at a higher level. The procedure (costs), price (reputation), policy, pliability and practice clusters were combined into “self-analysis”. The price (new FPV price) cluster, the productivity (delivery service) and the two related to promotion were combined into “product”. The productivity (distribution system) and procedure (information) clusters became “external analysis”. The letters S, P and E in Table 2 show these groupings. Clearly they do not fit the standard adjustment tree form (Figures 1 & 2) and, consequently, were not created by the mental processes of the decision-makers. The main thrust of the argument in this article is that there is a natural underlying structure that created the clusters, sub-clusters and factors in the minds of the decision-makers. This was not followed when forming this tree and reduced the qualitative homogeneity of the factors within the clusters, and between the clusters. Only the two related to promotion were combined at the next level. The assumption that Nomology brings to this procedure is that the clusters were already formed in the minds of the decision-makers before this research took place. Consequently, it is very possible that they had some internal estimates of the relative importance of these clusters that could have been accessed by the decision-advisor if the clusters had been identified correctly. On the other hand, if the decision advisor forms the clusters incorrectly, the decision-maker is forced to put a lot of effort into conceptualising them before trying to estimate their relative importance. Brugha (1998a, 2000) has reported that this can lead to confusion and affect the scoring of criteria weights. These confusions tend accumulate to the highest level of the tree where weight uncertainty has the greatest effect on the scoring of the outcomes. If the PPP had been used in this case it would have helped to define the variables, elicited the underlying tree structure and indicated appropriate ways to break the variables down further. Also it would have provided initial weights indicating the relative importance of the priorities. Correct clustering of the factors at every level ensures a meaningful scoring of their relative importance (Brugha, 2000). This can be done at the lowest level in the tree, for example comparing the importance of having competitive pricing versus company reputation. It can be done at interim levels such as the importance of good reputation versus good management, or the importance of good reputation and management versus ensuring the product fits the company’s market. Or it can be done at the highest level comparing planning versus putting issues, i.e. the top half versus the bottom half. It can be done using pairwise comparisons or using simultaneous comparisons in larger groups, probably of four factors. Different mixes of comparisons can be used for verification. Recent tests indicate that simultaneous scoring of the relative importance of several criteria works better than pairwise scoring, i.e. it led to fewer revisions by decision-makers when they were asked to revisit their judgements. Remaining true to the underlying structure also ensures that there is qualitative independence between the factors. This independence differentiates the FPsV from other PsV and was relied on in later stages of the MCDM process by Bana e Costa et al (1999). As is clear from Figure 2 qualitative independence has degrees of strength of difference from the least at the bottom of the tree to the most at the top. For example, the difference between pure and pragmatic versions of the procedure activity would be small compared to that between planning and putting. The greater the qualitative difference between clusters, the more important it would be not to mix the clusters. 7. DISCUSSION One of the quests of operational research is to get away from the ‘black box’ type solutions associated with its origins. Another is to break out of a ‘box mentality’ defined by its history. In its narrow interpretation O.R. is confined to operational matters. Many interesting problems addressed by O.R. people are strategic. The narrow view would also restrict O.R. to quantitative analyses of quantitative issues. This article is about a quantitative analysis of qualitative issues. It proposes the identification of priorities by measuring imbalances in answers to open-ended questions. Soft O.R. and MCDM generally are strategic and involve qualitative aspects. In fact criteria are truly multiple only when they are qualitatively distinct (Brugha, 1998a). The procedure described here produces a set of criteria such as in Table 1 that follow the rules of Grounded Theory, are qualitatively independent, are expressed in the language of the decision makers, and are produced using minimal effort, intrusion and interference in the organisation and its executives. 15 C. M. Brugha / The Priority-Pointing Procedure We include a restriction. Brugha (1998b) has shown that qualitative structuring divides into adjustment and development. A qualitative structuring approach to development type problems is considered elsewhere (Brugha, 1998e). The PPP is not appropriate for them. Generally, the experience with the procedure is that it is very successful in practice. Managers usually find it easy to answer open questions such as “what is necessary to ... ?”. In fact they enjoy expressing their view. They are not forced to produce “perfect” answers or come to a consensus with their colleagues. The PPP then provides them with a clear indication of how their organisation should proceed next to restore its balance and sense of dynamism. It is applicable to any group or societal problem. The main difficulty with its use lies with the allocation of answers to categories; developing this skill requires some training. The final conclusion usually coincides with the answers to one of the questions. It can be presented using the language of the respondents. Usually the conclusions have been well received. This article also considered the possible extension of the procedure to its use as an initial screening and problem-shaping tool in soft O.R. and MCDM projects as an alternative to cognitive mapping. For the purposes of a deeper investigation the PPP defines qualitatively independent variables which are usable as part of a further discussion which could be developed into a full soft O.R. or MCDM project. It also provides preliminary weights of the importance of these variables. 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