School of Accounting and Finance

University of Central Punjab

Instructions to Candidates
THIS AN INDIVIDUAL COURSEWORK
This assignment is designed to assess your ability to:
1. Apply decision analysis to a problem involving multiple objectives.
2. Evaluate the strengths and limitations of your analysis
Instructions
Produce a report of a minimum of 3,500 words that addresses the following questions:
1. Discuss the importance of decision making and the application of decision analysis.
2. Identify and outline a decision problem relating to your work or an external
organisation, which involves multiple objectives. Typical examples might be choosing a
new office location, a computer system, a raw materials supplier, a software package or
a new service provider. Outlined decision problem should have a clear business case.
3. Apply the simple multi-attribute rating technique (SMART) to the outlined decision
problem. Each stage of the analysis should be clearly defined and presented.
4. Discuss and detail the strengths and limitations of your analysis in the context of your
decision problem
Word length: Minimum 3,500 words excluding references
Submission Date: 18th April 2017
Guidance
The assignment should be presented within a report structure. Each section of the report
should be clearly structured and defined and an introduction or overview should be
provided. Across the report you will also need to show evidence of assessing a range of
resources, e.g. internet, journals, text books and company documents such as annual
reports. A Harvard Referencing style should be followed.
Question 1 should be based on a critical review of relevant literature and discuss the
importance of decision making and the application of decision analysis tools. Your answer
may include the features of effective decision making or how decision analysis could be
applied to support the performance of an organisation.
Within Question 2 you should select a clearly defined decision problem involving
multiple objectives. This decision problem could relate to your work or a personal decision.
However, the outlined decision problem should have a clear business context or
application. Alternatively, the outlined decision problem could relate to a decision faced by
an external organisation. The presented decision problem should be clearly presented and
where appropriate supporting sources and references should be provided.
The decision problem should be of adequate detail in order to support the analysis. The
decision problem should involve multiple objectives and it is suggested that the decision
problem consist, as a minimum, of at least 5 options (alternatives) and 5 attributes. The
context and features of the decision problem should then be discussed.
Following a discussion of the decision problem, a SMART decision analysis should be
applied. Within your answer to Question 3 you are required to outline and discuss the
various stages and outputs of the analysis. Within your analysis, the sensitivity analysis
should be critically discussed in relation to the decision problem and the influence of
changes in the identified attributes within the decision problem discussed.
Finally within Question 4 you should discuss, with the support of appropriate sources, the
strengths and limitations of the analysis.
A 10% weighting will be allocated towards the report structure, presentation and
referencing.