Identification of Feasible Alternatives
For decision-making to take place, there must be alternative courses of action available.
We can usually devise a variety of ways of achieving an objective after some thought.
But there is an ever present danger that in devising alternatives, we may overlook the
best alternative of all. lf this happens, we are left with the situation where the best
of the identified alternatives will be selected, but the result will not be the best
possible solution.* There is no way to ensure that the best alternative is among the
alternatives considered. Probably, one should be certain that all conventional
alternatives are enumerated, and that a serious effort is made suggest innovative
solutions. Sometimes a group of people considering alternatives in an innovative
atmosphere ("brainstorming') can be helpful.
Any listing of alternatives will produce both practical and impractical alternatives.
It would be of little use to seriously consider an alternative that cannot be adopted.
An alternative may be infeasible for a variety of reasons, such as, it violates
fundamental laws of science, or it requires resources or materials that cannot be
obtained, or it cannot be available in time specified in the problem objective.
After elimination, only feasible alternatives remain, and these become an input
for further analysis.
*A group of techniques called "value analysis" are sometimes used to examine
decisions. Where the previously made decision is not the best solution, value
analysis (which is a re-examination of the decision process) may help identify a
better solution, and hence improve decision-making.
This page was created by Timothy N. Burcham on 2/26/97 and was last updated on 2/26/97. The URL for this page is { }.