PROCEDURE TO DETERMINE CONSENSUS IN DECISIONMAKING

Abstract

This article proposes a procedure to reach a consensus when a group of experts has relatively homogeneous preferences, on indicators of the importance of the criteria "weights" that evaluate the applied alternatives; and it is possible to estimate the behavior or the results after implementing each alternative. These "weights" are related to the position of each criterion in an important ranking; therefore, when consensus is found, it can be interpreted as the ranking agreed by the group. The novelty in this procedure is that it assumes that the consensus may not exist (the group may not have relatively homogeneous preferences); simultaneously analyzing the level of consistency of each of the "experts" so that the procedure does not force consensus. The proposed procedure is presented in a case study where simulation was used to find out the possible results of implementing each alternative; what allowed to evaluate mathematically the alternatives and break with the classic way of evaluating the alternatives directly by the experts; and as a result, it was possible to improve the quality from the client service.