Training module
Decision Analysis
Structure complex decisions, clarify objectives, evaluate trade-offs, and make defensible choices under uncertainty
Are important decisions in your organisation driven by intuition, politics, or incomplete analysis?
This module introduces practical decision analysis methods that help structure objectives, compare alternatives, and make transparent, defensible choices under uncertainty.
Overview
What this module is about
Organizations regularly face decisions that shape outcomes and priorities: which risks to address, which initiatives to pursue, how to allocate resources, or which options offer the best balance of benefits and costs. In practice, these decisions are often made informally, without a clear structure for comparing alternatives or reasoning about trade-offs.
This module introduces practical decision analysis methods that help structure complex decisions. Participants learn how to clarify objectives, develop and compare alternatives, and reason about uncertainty and trade-offs using simple, repeatable approaches that make decision logic transparent and defensible.
Audience
Who it is for
Management system implementers and coordinators
Executives and department heads accountable for management system performance
Those responsible for processes, policies, assets, risks and controls
Auditors seeking insight into management-side practice, not audit technique
Consultants working on management system design, governance or improvement
Decision supportIs this module for you?
It is a good fit if you…
want to structure complex decisions instead of relying only on intuition or informal discussion.
need to clarify objectives and trade-offs when evaluating alternative actions.
want decisions and their rationale to be transparent and defensible.
face situations where uncertainty and competing priorities make decisions difficult.
It may not be the best fit if you…
already apply structured decision analysis methods consistently in your work.
are primarily looking for detailed quantitative modelling or specialised decision software.
expect prescriptive answers rather than structured ways to reason about decisions.
have no role in shaping or advising on organisational decisions.
What to bring
No formal prerequisites. This module assumes general familiarity with organisational decision-making and management practices.
Helpful background includes:
Experience participating in decisions involving trade-offs, priorities, or resource allocation
Familiarity with organisational roles, responsibilities, and decision processes
Comfort with structured reasoning and comparing alternatives (the module focuses on practical decision structuring rather than quantitative modelling)
Agenda
What is taught
7 parts01What structured decision analysis means in practice
How structured decision thinking improves complex decisions such as prioritisation, resource allocation, and investment choices, and where common failure modes such as premature conclusions, hidden assumptions, and unstructured trade-offs undermine decision quality
02Clarifying the decision and its boundaries
How to define the decision to be made, distinguish decision framing from analysis and implementation, identify decision owners and stakeholders, and establish clear decision scope and constraints
03Objectives and value hierarchies
How to identify decision objectives, distinguish fundamental from means objectives, and structure them into clear value hierarchies that guide analysis and comparison of alternatives
04Generating and structuring alternatives
How to develop meaningful decision alternatives, avoid premature narrowing of options, and structure alternatives so they can be compared consistently against defined objectives
05Trade-offs and multi-criteria comparison
How to compare alternatives across multiple objectives, make trade-offs explicit, and apply simple multi-criteria approaches that support transparent and defensible decision discussions
06Reasoning about uncertainty
How to identify key uncertainties, distinguish controllable from uncontrollable factors, and use simple scenario and sensitivity approaches to understand how uncertainty affects decisions
07Documenting decision logic and rationale
How to record assumptions, alternatives, trade-offs, and rationale so decision logic remains transparent, traceable, and usable for governance, review, and learning
Outcomes
Learning outcomes
01
Structure complex decisions by clearly defining the decision, objectives, and alternatives
02
Compare alternatives across multiple objectives using transparent and defensible reasoning
03
Apply simple approaches to analyse trade-offs and uncertainty in order to support sound decisions
Distinguish between decision framing, analysis, and implementation responsibilities
Identify common decision failure modes such as hidden assumptions, premature narrowing of alternatives, and unstructured trade-offs
Document decision logic, assumptions, and rationale so outcomes remain transparent and reviewable
Apply structured decision thinking to typical situations such as prioritisation, investment choices, and improvement planning
Materials
The content and the assessment
Written module
The full content in writing, complete in itself. Videos are recorded for parts of it as an alternative way through, and the written module always carries everything.
Exercises
Graded work on the case organisation's own registers: structured answers checked against the encoded case, written answers scored against a rubric traced to it, with a trainer holding the final word on every assessed item.
On completion
The assessed exercises must be passed before the certificate is issued.
Scheduling
No public run of Decision Analysis is scheduled at the moment. Tell us you are interested and we will let you know when the next one opens, or discuss running it in-house.
Module facts
- Module ID
- HAM-AG-MC-01
- Discipline
- Cross-discipline
- Domains
- Decisions · Transformation
- Part of tracks
- Management System Manager
Case organisation
All modules share one company
Each module enters the company at a particular point in its history and finds it as that history has left it.
Northstar Integrated Services AG is a group headquartered in Zurich, operating in six European countries, with about 1,350 employees at the end of 2025. It provides digital operations platforms and managed operational services to regulated organisations in healthcare, the public sector and industrial services. Founded in 2008 as a field-operations firm serving business customers, it had about twenty-five employees when its first regulated customer, a hospital group, required documented decisions, named accountability and evidence on request. It moved into the platform business in 2016 and in 2024 acquired an operating business in Poland and the Czech Republic, whose legal entity continues inside the group.
Linked registers
Organisation and people, roles, risks, objectives, policies, documents and records, communications, findings, audits and reviews, interested parties, processes
Records, not summaries
The evidence sits in the registers and documents where a real organisation would keep it.
A history
The company has a timeline from 2008, so a structure can be examined before and after it changed.
More than one legal entity
A Swiss parent company and an acquired subsidiary in Poland and the Czech Republic, with customers in several jurisdictions
Why it matters
Judgement develops on material that is incomplete and partly contradictory, as it is in practice. Northstar is built that way on purpose. Because modules enter its history at different points, a governance structure can be seen while it is built, when it is outgrown and when it is rebuilt.
Delivery & dates
How this module reaches you
Delivered live online, combining conceptual framing, discussion, case work and direct interaction with the trainer. In-house and contextualised delivery is available on request.
No public run is scheduled at the moment. Most modules run on request as well as on the public calendar, so tell us the timing you need.
Want this module scheduled?
We will tell you when the next run is scheduled, or run this module in-house with your own case material.
Not sure it is the right module?
Describe your context in a short message and we will tell you honestly.