Date of Award

Summer 2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering

Committee Director

Patrick T. Hester

Committee Member

Adrian Gheorghe

Committee Member

C. Ariel Pinto

Committee Member

Robert F. Larsen

Abstract

This dissertation contributes a framework for analysts and engineering managers to investigate and choose alternative analysis and selection methods based upon their problem and its context. It began as an investigation into the alternative analysis and selection methods used in military planning. The existing military methods were inconsistent, violated the decision science body of knowledge, and provided no guidance to the practitioner on matching methods to problems. These challenges made it necessary to conduct this investigation.

This research used a three-phase mixed methods approach. The first phase applied the general inductive method to the decision making body of knowledge to elicit an evaluation theme. The second phase used content analysis to identify evaluation criteria and satisficing to choose an evaluation framework structure. The completed framework is applied to the case of U.S. Army planning in phase three as a validation case study.

This investigation's results suggest that the proposed evaluation framework methodology is valid based upon the member checks and expert feedback on the case study. The research also contributes an expert-tested scalable collaborative online tool for alternative analysis and selection method research and selection. Finally, this dissertation recommends improvements for decision making in U.S. Army planning that have been validated by military planning and operations research experts.

DOI

10.25777/2073-7688

ISBN

9781339126838

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