Analytic Hierarchy Process/Addendum

Other steps

1. Establish priorities for the elements of the hierarchy.
2. Investigate the logical consistency of the priorities established in step 2.

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More about Hierarchies

While the best way to understand AHP hierarchies is to work with them on a practical basis, the extensive literature on AHP includes a few works that discuss the subject. Some of them are listed below.

Chapter 3 of the book Decision Making for Leaders includes further information on Analyzing and Structuring Hierarchies in AHP. The chapter's key points are:

• In an AHP hierarchy, complex problems are split into their component parts according to their essential relationships.
• The top level of the hierarchy has only one element—the goal. The other levels usually contain between five and nine elements each.
• There is no limit to the number of levels.
• When the elements of a level cannot be easily compared, a new level with finer distinctions should be created.
• Hierarchies can be altered during the course of the process.

Chapter 4 of the same book includes 32 examples of hierarchies that have been used with the Analytic Hierarchy Process. They include hierarchies for business decisions, personal and domestic decisions, public policy decisions, planning economic policies, estimating and predicting, and measuring influences. Examples include hierarchies for:

• Choosing Urethane Equipment
• Allocating R&D Resources
• Choosing a School
• Choosing a Program to Increase Harbor Capacity
• Analyzing Conflict in Healthcare Administration
• Measuring Parental Influence on Psychological Well-Being

An extensive reference on AHP hierarchies is The Hierarchon, a dictionary of over 400 decision problems in government and the private sector, structured as hierarchical decision models. The Hierarchon serves as a stimulus and a rich source of ideas to help in structuring decision problems as hierarchies.