Update:

OnBalance & HiPriority are now legacy products and are no longer available for download.

OnBalance

Our OnBalance Decision Analysis software is used by leading organisations to help make multi-million pound decisions. It is used around the world and is praised for its strong visual outputs and graphical interface. After all, making finely balanced choices is hard enough without having to worry about your modelling system:

OnBalance Mapping Screen
Setting up the scale mappings in OnBalance

Flexibility and transparency are vital to resolving conflicting objectives and more importantly to briefing the decisions and getting wide buy-in prior to implementation. It is this consensus that builds commitment and leads to positive attitudes during the difficult months of implementation.


OnBalance is based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) which helps separate what you measure from how you value it. The interface is specifically designed for group decision making, as most of the difficult decisions are between good schemes, each supported by one or more managers.

So the problem is not so much about calculating the trade-offs as it is about stimulating the debate, focusing on one issue at a time, resolving and recording the agreements and then moving on. At each stage the group can see the impact of each change and gain confidence that their judgments are accurately reflected.

 

New interface and navigation system:
  • Central menu bar with full access to all windows
  • Intuitive Process Diagram to guide you through all the steps of the decision journey
  • Window specific menus and toolbars to locate all actions easily
  • Right-hand mouse clicks throughout to help you drill down when necessary
Additional Model functionality:
  • 8 flexible mapping types
  • Limits to benchmark the performance of Options
  • Comments on the scores so that whenever there is uncertainty or dispute this can easily be captured
  • A new import system allows mass transfer or easy cut and paste from web pages, spreadsheets, .CSV files, directly into the model 
Powerful analysis and reporting:
  • What-if and stakeholder analyses through the multiple weights sets that allow you to record
    and explore differences in the criteria weights
  • Insightful robustness screen to identify the reasons behind the winner's performance and perform sanity checks
  • Powerful sensitivity analysis to perform what-if analysis, identify the ranges of stability for each criterion and see the impact on the remaining criteria
  • Results displayed as stacked bar charts with the overall value number overlaid
  • Creation of custom screenshots (jpg) with one click from the outputs of OnBalance that can be used anywhere

HiPriority

HiPriority redefines the power and ease with which you can tackle Resource Allocation, Project Prioritisation and Design to best Value decisions. At its heart, a Benefit to Cost ratio is used to sort many possible options (projects/ objectives) into solutions, thus encouraging debate and choice amongst those involved so that the best portfolio can be found within the available budget.

HiPriority was the world's first product to allow accurate modeling of the consequences of interactions between options:

  • Synergies are defined by modifying the effective cost or benefit of including two options in a solution
  • Dependencies and Exclusions between options to avoid impossible combinations
  • Multiple Buffers to see the effects of forcing options in (or out) of a solution

The combinations are endless but the powerful search engine will always take them into account to find the solutions with the greatest value. There are no behind the scenes rules; every control is represented by a visual object that can be inspected and modified in real time. Any possible solution can be viewed within the powerful inspection window, which allows immediate visual analysis and understanding of the changes:

HiPriority Inspection
                  Window
Viewing solutions and buffers in the HiPriority inspection window


Don't be daunted! All this power is delivered in an intuitive build-and-display approach which makes the software is easy to learn and use. But most importantly recommendations are easy to convey to others not present in the group decision making event.


Who can Benefit?

When you can't see the wood from the trees...

HiPriority can be particularly beneficial for Group decision making, where the transparency and intuitive display enable each stakeholder to see the full picture. Examples of effective use include:

  • CEO needing to provide strategic direction to their organisation
  • Departmental Manager with budgeting decisions
  • Project Manager in need of prioritisation solutions
  • Product Manager wishing to build a leading portfolio
  • Engineer interested in design of machines

Because HiPriority helps focus attention on the most efficient solutions, it can be of benefit to anyone with a decision of considerable complexity.

HiPriority provides a solution giving the optimal portfolio within a given cost (e.g. budget, time) while taking into account the differing views of interested parties.

Even those with little or no knowledge of MCDA can feel comfortable and confident with the easy to use interface of HiPriority. Training, support and tutorials are always available depending on your needs. Whereas most people take advantage of this, we have some clients who picked it up with very little, if any, training.

 

New interface and navigation system:
  • Central menu bar with full access to all windows
  • Intuitive Process Diagram to guide you through all the steps of the decision journey
  • Window specific menus and toolbars to locate all actions easily
  • Right-hand mouse clicks throughout to help you drill down when necessary
Powerful analysis and reporting:
  • What-if and stakeholder analyses through the multiple weights sets that allow you to record and explore differences in the criteria weights
  • Inspection window that simultaneously shows each solution from 4 different perspectives
  • Multiple groupings for the options to provide a new viewpoint of the proposed solution and stimulate debate
  • High transparency of calculations allows the inspection window to show effects in multiple directions, thus improving confidence in solutions
Additional Model functionality:
  • Ability to model interactions between options: synergies, dependencies and exclusions
  • At least one option constraint for Designs to Best Value
  • 8 flexible mapping types
  • User defined solutions that clearly show the relative strengths within the solution space
  • Walks demonstrate the sub-optimal nature of serial decision making and help construct recovery plans from the status quo
  • New text boxes that allow you to capture all the detail and cross reference with external documents
  • Comments on the scores so that whenever there is uncertainty or dispute this can easily be captured
  • A new import system allows mass transfer or easy cut and paste from web pages, spreadsheets, .CSV files, directly into the model