Alternatives

Quick reference

• 00:06 In this video, we will be looking at the alternatives page of 1000minds.
• 00:12 Your alternatives are the different options that you're considering when
• 00:16 making a decision.
• 00:17 If you were looking to buy a house,
• 00:19 then your alternatives would be the different houses you're looking at.
• 00:24 Or if you want to prioritize patients for treatment in a hospital,
• 00:28 then your alternatives would be the different patients.
• 00:32 In this example, let's look at different cities to move to.
• 00:36 So our alternatives in this case are the different cities that
• 00:41 we might be considering.
• 00:43 We don't have to add any alternatives at this stage.
• 00:46 If we want, we can make trade-offs about entering alternatives just to determine
• 00:50 our preference values for each criterion.
• 00:53 And then we can add alternatives later at the ranked alternative step.
• 00:58 This would be useful if our main objective were to create a
• 01:02 decision-making framework.
• 01:03 For example, in procurement, where the decision-making process needs to
• 01:08 be laid out before going to tender or patient prioritization in hospitals,
• 01:13 where there needs to be a tool for prioritizing patients as they arise.
• 01:17 To access the alternatives page on the menu on the left, click on Alternatives.
• 01:25 Maybe we don't like the name alternatives and
• 01:28 we would prefer to call it something else.
• 01:30 By clicking on this drop-down menu here, we can choose a different terminology.
• 01:36 So instead of alternatives, we could call it Candidates or
• 01:40 Options, but we want something even more precise.
• 01:45 We can add our own terminology by clicking on Custom term.
• 01:49 And here, we can type in the term that we want to use.
• 01:53 Since we will be looking at a list of cities, let's call it cities.
• 01:58 Once we click Apply, the term alternatives will be updated to cities and
• 02:03 all other areas of this decision, like we see here and their menu on the left.
• 02:08 But let's just leave it as alternatives for now, just to avoid confusion.
• 02:17 One of the cities we're thinking about moving to is New York City,
• 02:21 the city where dreams come true.
• 02:23 We can add this alternative by clicking Add Alternative and
• 02:27 entering the name here.
• 02:34 Here we can add a description for this alternative.
• 02:42 Or an image to get a better sense of how this place looks.
• 02:50 But both are optional.
• 02:52 More importantly,
• 02:53 we want to input how this alternative fits each of our criteria.
• 02:58 So we fill out these fields based on how the public transportation
• 03:03 system is in New York, what the weather is like.
• 03:06 How the nightlife is, and whether or not there's a beach because those
• 03:12 are the things that we said mattered to us on the criteria page.
• 03:17 Because we also entered some costs and other consideration when specifying
• 03:22 our criteria earlier, we see those here as well.
• 03:25 So we put into medium rent and the cost of school,
• 03:29 which unfortunately are both very expensive in New York.
• 03:34 We could add a new alternative right away, but for now,
• 03:38 let's just go back to view our list of alternatives.
• 03:41 And here we see the alternative that we just added.
• 03:46 If we do want to change the term alternatives to something else,
• 03:50 we can do that on the right here in the drop-down menu.
• 03:56 Let's say we entered one of the fields incorrectly or
• 03:59 maybe the median rent increased in New York.
• 04:02 So we'll update that field by clicking on it in the table.
• 04:07 When we're ready to add a new alternative to this list, we can do so
• 04:12 by clicking on New Alternative on the top left.
• 04:15 Then enter the name of the new alternative and repeat the process.
• 04:22 So here's our list of cities that we're thinking about moving to.
• 04:26 To duplicate an item on the list, we can select the row and click on Copy.
• 04:33 Or maybe want to clear the entries in the criteria for one of our alternatives.
• 04:38 So we'll select the row we want to clear and click Reset Data.
• 04:44 Or we can even just delete the row completely by clicking on Delete.
• 04:51 Now, let's take a look at all of our possible alternatives.
• 04:56 Here we're given all the combinations that could be possible with the criteria and
• 05:01 the levels that we established.
• 05:03 These are not necessarily any real alternatives,
• 05:06 they just show us what could hypothetically be possible.
• 05:10 And this could be a useful proxy,
• 05:12 if we didn't already have any real alternatives defined.
• 05:16 From this list, we see that our ideal city to live in would be a city where public
• 05:22 transportation is great, the weather is great, nightlife is excellent.
• 05:27 And there's a beach because who doesn't love a beach?
• 05:31 We are curious how such a city would compare to the rest of the cities that
• 05:35 we're considering.
• 05:36 So we'll add this hypothetical alternative from here to our alternatives list.
• 05:42 And we can do that by checking the box next to that alternative and
• 05:46 clicking Copy To Alternatives.
• 05:51 Now we see the hypothetical alternative that we added right here, but
• 05:56 it doesn't have a good name yet, so let's give it a fitting name.
• 06:08 This list looks pretty good now and
• 06:10 we might want to use it in other applications.
• 06:13 Let's add an ID or custom label for our alternatives,
• 06:17 which can be useful when identifying an alternative,
• 06:21 especially when importing or exporting the data for use and other applications.
• 06:28 Now that we've done that, let's export the file into Excel by clicking on Export.
• 06:36 Now that we have a list of alternatives,
• 06:38 we can have fun analyzing it using 1000minds.

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