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Rating: 
Summary: Panning the Decison Tools Suite
Review: Dr Clemen has provided an excellent text for Decision Analysis nstruction. I have continuously surveyed the field and have yet to find a text that comes up to the standard that Dr Clemen originally set with his first publication "Making Hard Decisions"I have used "Making Hard Decisions with Decision Tools Suite" as well as the predecessor text "Making Hard Decisions." The "Making Hard Decisions with Decision Tools Suite." text dedicates almost as many pages on how to use the accompanying software as it does to decision making itself. And the software, based on my use of it for two different teaching sessions, is, at best, flakey. Learning to use the software (there are several different modules) requires a great deal of time and energy, and because the software is unstable, getting a good result from it is a rarity rather than a reward. The "Making Hard Decisions" text, on the other hand, provides more and better material for the decison analysis process. It does incur the added expense of having to use software from another source. My plan for this coming semester is to use the "Making Hard Decisions" text and decision analysis software provided by another source. I think Dr Clemen should focus his energies on the "Making Hard Decisons" text, and let the "Making Hard Decisons with Decision Tools" text be a low priority effort until the accompanying software matures a bit. Richard D Hofler
Rating:
Summary: Panning the Decison Tools Suite
Review: Dr Clemen has provided an excellent text for Decision Analysis nstruction. I have continuously surveyed the field and have yet to find a text that comes up to the standard that Dr Clemen originally set with his first publication "Making Hard Decisions" I have used "Making Hard Decisions with Decision Tools Suite" as well as the predecessor text "Making Hard Decisions." The "Making Hard Decisions with Decision Tools Suite." text dedicates almost as many pages on how to use the accompanying software as it does to decision making itself. And the software, based on my use of it for two different teaching sessions, is, at best, flakey. Learning to use the software (there are several different modules) requires a great deal of time and energy, and because the software is unstable, getting a good result from it is a rarity rather than a reward. The "Making Hard Decisions" text, on the other hand, provides more and better material for the decison analysis process. It does incur the added expense of having to use software from another source. My plan for this coming semester is to use the "Making Hard Decisions" text and decision analysis software provided by another source. I think Dr Clemen should focus his energies on the "Making Hard Decisons" text, and let the "Making Hard Decisons with Decision Tools" text be a low priority effort until the accompanying software matures a bit. Richard D Hofler
Rating: 
Summary: Book is OK. Spend extra $20 if you buy used book.
Review: There is a software with the book, which has to be used for working on the problems.(The book has no use without the software).
You can register the software only once.
If you buy a used book, you have to pay another $20 to get a new serial # to use the software.
My seller mburns1000 didn't mention about this when I bought the book and I ended up spending another $20.
Rating: 
Summary: The authors know how to write a textbook!
Review: This exceptional book is worth reading regardless of readers' specialization. A big surprise for those who don't like probability and statistics! This book could be a good introduction to Probability and Statistics with Bayesian approach. Although I cannot point out bad sections, here are some of the topics that could be improved. Influence Diagram examples are much fewer than Decision Tree diagrams. I'd love to see more complex and elaborate decision model examples for practitioners implementing their own models. In probability chapter, the authors implicitly assume that Pr(A,B) means Pr(AB) or Pr(A and B) where Pr() is "probability of" and A and B are some events. This is never mentioned in the book (as far as I recall), so it should be fixed for clarity. Also in the same chapter, chain rules and marginalization are not covered explicitly, yet a reader needs to use these general rules in exercises and in some of main contents. These rules are very important in manipulating probability and conditional probability terms. Although there are few selected answers for exercises, most of the answers are not too hard and they are self-explanatory. So self-study readers shouldn't worry too much. A curious person who might wonder what decision science and analysis is about, I recommend reading "Smart Choice" by John Hammond, et al. Less math and more compact exposition. For further study in Influence Diagrams and Bayesian Belief Nets (BBN), a good introduction is "Bayesian Networks and Decision Graphs" by Finn Jensen, et al. There are numerous good sites for BBN on web so search them online. For probability and statistics, "Probability and Statistics" by Degroot, et al. or Feller's Volume 1 are good, which are mentioned in the textbook. Note: I recommend this blue cover version rather than green one as the former comes with Palisade Decision Tools Suite and is published later.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding Hard Decisions
Review: Understanding Hard Decisions So that you know where I am coming from: I found this book while selecting a new text for my senior "Decision & Risk Analysis" course. There are numerous books on this subject, but none are perfect: either the presentation of the subject is hard, talking way above the heads of the audience, or too theoretical, or requiring a high level of math skills, or the presentation is at a too low level, or too narrow in focus, or not covering the whole spectrum of Decision Analysis. I chose this book for various advantages it has. The technical level of math that it requires is low, yet the analysis is high. It is written in a very easy way to read, follow and understand manner. It can be used both as a textbook for a course as well as a reference. It makes use of the most common generic tool for calculating and solving problems, the Excel spreadsheet for the suite of software that comes with the book (Palisades Decision tools) are integrated with it. The book offers a rather complete presentation of decision analysis concepts and techniques: there is a whole chapter on the important topic of sensitivity analysis, another chapter on simulation; and risk and forecasting are also presented. I find the reference section in each chapter excellent, for it helps the reader tie the literature to the concepts presented. The last chapter which gives an annotated decision analysis reading list is also very helpful. All textbooks need to have these two ingredients. It is true that numerous of the references given in the book are fairly old, but the topic is not in the fast changing computer science field, and many of the original articles and books in the decision analysis area are classics and need to be looked at carefully. (Maybe there is a lesson to learn here for those who give a minus when "old" references are included in a scholarly work.) The book is very modern for the concepts it presents (influence diagrams - a relatively newcomer in decision analysis, issues of recent interest, such as assessment, ecology and AIDS) and because it also ties with the web. The reader is directed to the web page of the Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS and this gives an important tool for keeping the knowledge presented in the book constantly updateable and broadening the spectrum of the interested reader. Another advantage: the book emphasizes structuring decision problems rather the more traditional approach to stress modeling of uncertainty and preference. I like both the structure of the book (that follows the decision analysis process) and that of each chapter which consist of an introduction, presentation of concepts and techniques, a summary section, challenging case studies accompanied by questions referring to the concepts just presented, references, and an epilogue. Best qualities of the book: clarity, good structure, interesting real or realistic fictitious case studies - extremely important to keep the student interested in a topic which other books present in a dry way and with just "toy" problems. Yes, the book is rather expensive, but do not disregard the fact that it comes with a set of software tools which although a student version (with limited-size problems and expiring after a while) it can be time-unlocked for a cost. Most importantly the software does not represent a separate school-only tool, for there exist commercial standard and professional versions that the student will be able to use on real-life problems without the need to go through an additional learning curve, if willing to pay the larger, but non-prohibitive cost. Clear instructions for how to use the software is given in the appropriate sections of the book. What I would add? A glossary of decision analysis terms, either for each chapter or, with preference, a global one at the end of the book. A special touch: most chapters end with an epilogue. Each epilogue has a different flavor (a game, a comment on a debated case, etc.) The epilogue does not directly summarize the main "action" of the chapter. It is more like the conclusion section of a musical composition - it brings some additional intriguing element that will keep the interest of the student aroused. This is as artistic in nature as decision science must be! Review by Ileana Costea, Ph.D. Professor of Engineering, California State University, Northridge Email: icostea@csun.edu October 18, 2000 Los Angeles
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Summary: Hard Decisions Basics
Review: Used this book in a "Making Decisions under Uncertainty" graduate class at the Business School of the University of São Paulo. This book brings all the basics for decision making theory, specifically quantitative aspects of it and comes along with the Decision Tools software that has some bugs but works ok. Using the book together with the software you will get a very good basic idea of what decision making is all about. If decision theory is important for your studies buy this book!!! I also recommend Max Bazerman's "Judgment in managerial decision making" as a complement to it because this one focuses more on the subjective piece of decision making (decision biases, uncertainty, etc, etc) which is not really covered well by Clemen & Reilly. With both, you have a very good toolset for starting to study Decision Making Theory.
Rating:
Summary: Hard Decisions Basics
Review: Used this book in a "Making Decisions under Uncertainty" graduate class at the Business School of the University of São Paulo. This book brings all the basics for decision making theory, specifically quantitative aspects of it and comes along with the Decision Tools software that has some bugs but works ok. Using the book together with the software you will get a very good basic idea of what decision making is all about. If decision theory is important for your studies buy this book!!! I also recommend Max Bazerman's "Judgment in managerial decision making" as a complement to it because this one focuses more on the subjective piece of decision making (decision biases, uncertainty, etc, etc) which is not really covered well by Clemen & Reilly. With both, you have a very good toolset for starting to study Decision Making Theory.
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