Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA)

Stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) is a family of methods for aiding multicriteria group decision making in problems with uncertain, imprecise or partially missing information. These methods are based on exploring the weight space in order to describe the preferences that make each alternative the most preferred one, or that would give a certain rank for a specific alternative. The main results of the analysis are rank acceptability indices, central weight vectors and confidence factors for different alternatives. The rank acceptability indices describe the variety of different preferences resulting in a certain rank for an alternative, the central weight vectors represent the typical preferences favouring each alternative, and the confidence factors measure whether the criteria measurements are sufficiently accurate for making an informed decision. A general approach for applying SMAA in real-life decision problems is to use it repetitively with more and more accurate information until the information is sufficient for making a decision. Between the analyses, information can be added by making more accurate criteria measurements, or assessing the DMs’ preferences more accurately in terms of various preference parameters.