Alphabet Soup of Objectives

Norway Qualitative information and misunderstandings in decision making An alphabet soup is a soup made with alphabet shaped noodles. It is commonly used as a metaphor for an abundance of abbreviations or acronyms. In this paper it is used to characterize project objectives that are nonsensical or misguiding and therefore of no use. Experience suggests that even though we might have a clear idea of what we want to achieve, we are notoriously sloppy in defi ning realistic and unambiguous objectives. The strange thing is that this doesn't seem to matter much, apparently because of our unbounded willingness to understand even nonsensical expressions. What might be even more surprising is that despite of this, the message is often interpreted in the same way by different individuals. However, this is far from certain, and since we are talking about objectives that have been set to guide essential decisions, the uncertainty might often be too high. Most of the communication between individuals is in terms of qualitative expressions. Qualitative information is not something that we use in a given situation; it is what we all use in our communication. Our qualitative expressions may not in themselves be suffi cient to express exactly what we wish to convey, but will still with reasonable probability be understood the way they are intended. More so if it is within one specifi c context. It will depend upon what the basis for the information is. Some is based on systematic quantitative analysis of fact, and some of assumptions and judgment. At an early stage of inquiry available information is limited, and we will largely have to resort to qualitative expressions based on assumptions and judgmental information. This may not only be to our disadvantage. On the contrary, using textual information instead of numbers might make it easier to visualize and discuss complex matters. The level of precision is necessarily restricted and we might make fundamental mistakes so that our expressions are erroneous in relation to our intension even completely meaningless. This paper discusses how to improve qualitative information, taking as examples the agreed objectives in three large public projects.