Problem structuring: A study on the available methods and their integration and effective proposition for successful interventions

Several critical elements (such as uncertainty, complexity and lack of structure) limit the use of analytical models and methods in problem solving and decision-aid in practice. In an effort to solve these problems, the initial representation or conceptualization of a problem is so crucial to its subsequent treatment that one is tempted to say that the most important as well as most difficult issue underlying the subject of problem solving is precisely ‘how to structure the problem’. The purpose of study is to review concepts related to the problems that require structuring (ill-structured or unstructured problems), the methods that are available in order to deal with these problems (problem structuring methods) and to study the use of these methods in interventions. The research involved creation of a community with the aim of integrating competences on how different methods may be used and integrated to face complex and unstructured decision situations, in order to develop methodological skills that could effectively facilitate the analyst’s work. Each member of this community was involved, at the start in relation to a specific old intervention, in an investigation project, in relation to some cases and their modeling processes, which have been developed in real organizations, by means of a specific technical approach or with the support of a multimethodology with formal tools that propose a limited quantification within a systematic framework. Therefore the operational idea for the investigation was a procedure at two phases, the first for the creation of a knowledge base for the second phase and the second of interaction with the author of the paper that describes an intervention case. The information gathered from the community provided important insights into the problem structuring interventions and the results aim to facilitate the analysts to have an idea about the competences that need to be developed for a successful intervention.