Return on Software: Maximizing the Return on Your Software Investment

Dimensionality of the Decision Techniques

There are two families of decision techniques that differ in how they use the attributes in the decision. One family is the “compensatory,” or single-dimensioned, techniques. This family collapses all the attributes onto a single figure of merit. The family is called compensatory because, for any given alternative, a lower score in one attribute can be compensated by—or traded off against—a higher score in other attributes.

In contrast, the other family is the “noncompensatory,” or fully dimensioned, techniques. This family does not allow tradeoffs among the attributes. Each attribute is treated as a separate entity in the decision process.

The different families of techniques are not mutually exclusive. ...