Using the analytic hierarchy process as a two-phase integrated decision approach for large nominal groups

When decision makers who comprise a large nominal group face an unstructure d decision problem and no simultaneous interactive communications are avail able, problem identification and consensus building are difficult, if not i mpossible. Few tools are available to assist decision makers in this situat ion. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has typically been used to evalua te a set of alternatives after a decision problem has been structured as a hierarchy with various levels of criteria above the alternatives. With a gr oup of decision makers, AHP has been used to evaluate those alternatives ei ther by consensus building or by combining judgments or priorities using th e geometric mean to aggregate their preferences. In this paper, we extend t he use of AHP to a situation involving a large nominal group of dispersed d ecision makers where the entire hierarchy is not defined at the outset. In particular, we use the AHP as an integrative approach to identify the prior ities of the various criteria and then use those priorities to screen and c onsolidate a large set of potential alternatives. This results in consideri ng a reduced set of alternatives that will be affected by the more importan t criteria. The consolidated set of alternatives is evaluated by each indiv idual in the group using AHP, combined using the geometric mean, and the re sults are synthesized to obtain the overall priorities of the alternatives. The approach is demonstrated and evaluated in a case study to select an al unmi anniversary gift to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with a large nominal group of decision-makers dispersed throughout the United States.