Questions guiding the choice of a multicriteria decision aiding method

We formulate some questions that may help an analyst to choose a multicriteria decision aiding method well adapted to the decision context. These questions take into account several aspects of the decision process and of the cooperation between the analyst and the decision maker. We present these questions in a hierarchical order, from the most general and crucial, through other pertinent questions concerning the multicriteria aggregation, to the secondary ones. The initial question is what type of results the method is expected to bring. The next questions concern requirements on preference scales, acquisition of preference information, handling of imperfect knowledge, acceptance of compensation among criteria, and existence of interaction among criteria. The last questions are about intelligibility, axiomatic characterization, and weaknesses of the considered methods. To illustrate these questions, we introduce twelve representative and realistic decision contexts.