AHP software

Cassie's post reminded me of a nifty application that can be used for AHP analysis, which the appendix to the Wikipedia article on AHP links to.

http://www.superdecisions.com/

It's free; all you have to do is set up an account and request a serial key. Once you download it (the Windows-compatible version works on W7 too), it may be awkward to learn how use it. Here's what we need to know:

1) To create hierarchies (or Clusters), press Shift+N.

2) To create items inside the hierarchies (or Nodes), click on the cluster you want to put the node in and press the n key (without holding Shift).

3) Once you have two clusters with nodes in them, you have to "connect" the nodes in order to set up criteria. To do that, LEFT-click on a node in the parent cluster (a black border appears on it), and then RIGHT-click on the node in the child cluster you want to be a criterion for (a red border appears around that node, and an arrow between clusters appears).

4) To begin pairwise comparisons, press F5 to open the Node Comparisons window. With the arrows in the top right corner, choose the criterion you're comparing things against in ("With respect to node") and the cluster of nodes you're pairwise comparing ("Cluster"). Click "Do Comparison."

5) Fill out the Questionnaire. Read the Wikipedia article to understand how the scoring system works.

6) Once you filled out all of your comparisons, press Ctrl-P for a list of all the priorities.