Final Report Decision Components

Decision Components

What are the basic components of a "decision"? The following decision components are offered for your consideration. An XML Schema of this first-cut rough representation of a decision is available in pdf here.

At a conceptual level, the components might be the following:

(1) A Decision begins with a question to be answered

(2) Options consisting of ideas with pros and cons, where each pro and con has a weight

(3) Criteria for evaluating the options

(4) An assessment of the options based on the criteria

(5) A selected option

(6) A level of confidence

(7) SubDecisions

(8) A Decision 'State" with associated dateTime

(9) A decider or deciders

(10) A decision process

These conceptual components might be constructed from the following components (most of which would be optional to allow flexibility for lightweight v. fully structured representations):

DecisionType = GUID + Question + Options + Confidence + SubDecisions + Notes + References + DecisionState + DecisionEventInfo

Options = Ideas + Selected (T or F) + Pros + Cons

Question = StatementType

Idea = StatementType

StatementType = BasicStatementType + Pedigree

BasicStatementType = Globally Unique ID + Title + Description + State + URL_Link + Triple

Pedigree = EventInfoType

DecisionEventInfo = EventInfoType

EventInfoType = who + what + where + when + how + why (all of which are BasicStatementTypes)

ProConType = BasicStatementType + SubDecisions + CriterionEvaluated

Pro = ProConType

Con = ProConType

DecisionState = ValueListURIType + dateTime

ValueListURIType = listURI + value (which allows for referencing externally managed lists)