Assign a title and description for the decision matrix itself

This feature is optional. For future reference, you may want to give your current project (decision matrix) a name and store a brief description. To do this, double-click on the cell in the upper left corner (the one labeled Jump TOC Locations above). SquidMat will prompt you to enter a title (make it short) and description for the matrix. To refer back to this information, go to the Help menu and select About this decision matrix. To edit the information, simply go back and double-click the upper left corner cell. 

Enter Evaluation Criteria (ECs)

As a best practice, you should determine the basis on which your courses of action (COAs) should compete before you know what those courses of action are. This helps you remain more objective in determining those bases, known as evaluation criteria (ECs). Otherwise, you might be tempted to identify your ECs in order to favor one or more COAs.

Entering evaluation criteria information

Click on Eval Criteria on the main menu to bring up the Evaluation Criteria form shown below.  This form allows you to add and delete evaluation criteria, name them, rank them in importance, and indicate if each criterion is "more is better" (MIB, the default) or "less is better" (LIB). MIB means that higher values for that criterion are better than lower ones (e.g., profit). LIB means that lower values are better (e.g., cost).

Adding and removing evaluation criteria

You add and remove criteria by clicking on the + EC and - EC buttons on the menu. Just keep in mind that rows are added and removed on the bottom. You'll be prompted before SquidMat removes a row, in case you forget that it's the last row that gets removed. 

Prioritizing criteria/moving rows

Move rows in the Evaluation Criteria form by clicking on the row's header (first column, under the heading Priority ) and dragging and dropping it at the desired location. The priority values in the leftmost column will renumber themselves automatically.

Note that moving the rows in the Evaluation Criteria form moves the corresponding columns in the decision matrix (main program view). This also wipes out the weights in the affected rows (not necessarily all rows, just those that are affected by the move). These are the only actions performed in the Evaluation Criteria form that are immediately translated to the decision matrix. Otherwise changes in the Evaluation Criteria form are not made in the decision matrix until those changes are formally sent by way of the Evaluation Criteria form's Send Values button.

Naming criteria

You can enter data row by row. Hitting Enter will move you sideways across a row, allowing you to complete information one criterion at a time. 

• Short Title. Enter a title for that criterion. 

• Importance. Indicate how much more important this criterion is than the one after it (i.e., the row directly below it). I give you five choices from a pulldown menu. The default choice is "Equal to," which corresponds to an Importance value of 1.00.

• Override. If you don't like the five choices I give you, you can enter any value from 1.00 to 9.99 in the Override cell. A legitimate value in the Override cell causes SquidMat to disregard whatever is in the Importance cell. 

• Unit. Some find it useful to indicate somewhere what the unit of measure is for the values for a criterion. The Unit cell allows you to type in that information, if you desire.

• MIB/LIB. Select from a pulldown menu whether for this criterion higher values are better (more is better, MIB) or worse (less is better, LIB).

Sending evaluation criteria information to the decision matrix

After you get all of the information entered, you can send it to the decision matrix by pressing the Send Values button on the menu. With the exception of swapping rows (and the wiping out of weight information that goes with those swaps), any changes you make in the information in the Evaluation Criteria form is unknown to the decision matrix unless you hit the Send Values button. So don't forget to send changes before closing this form.

Enter Courses of Action (COAs)

Adding and removing courses of action

Use the +COA and - COA buttons on the main menu to add and remove courses of action. Just keep in mind that these actions are performed on the last row. Adding a course of action places a new, empty row at the bottom of the matrix. Removing a course of action takes out the last row. You will be reminded by a prompt that it's the last row that will be removed. Make sure before you wipe out a row you intended to keep. 

Naming courses of action

You can add supply short titles for your courses of action by double clicking on any of the row header cells directly under the title COURSES OF ACTION (first column on the left). 

Sorting courses of action

You can move a course of action (row) by grabbing its header cell (the one where you entered its short title) and dragging and dropping it where you want it. The only time SquidMat moves these rows is when it does its computations and finds the winning course of action. It moves the winning course of action to the top and highlights its short title and total score in red.

Note that you cannot sort evaluation criteria from within the main program view. This is because reordering the evaluation criteria requires you to recompute their weights. So you have to pull up the Evaluation Criteria form to move them around and rework the weight values. 

Resizing columns

In both the main program view and the Evaluation Criteria form, you can change column widths by grabbing the right border of that column and either double clicking on it or dragging it to the desired size.