Title: Decision structuring dialogue

Authors: Sebastian Slotte and Raimo P. Hämäläinen

Status: Systems Analysis Laboratory Research Reports E13, April 2003, Preliminary working draft of 9.4.2003


This paper presents a dialogue approach for the structuring of decisions, called Decision Structuring Dialogue. With Dialogue we refer to a facilitated group communication process with specific rules and guidelines. The aim of such a dialogue in general is to aid group interaction, collective learning and collaborative investigation. Decision Structuring Dialogue is developed on the basis of two such types of dialogues, the Nelsonian and the Bohmian Dialogue. Through a discussion of the importance of decision structuring in MCDM we introduce Decision Structuring Dialogue as a method for decision problem structuring. Elements of it can also be incorporated into other problem structuring methods. The approach was successfully used in a group of stakeholders, at a large regulated Finnish Lake, with conflicting interests.