Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Vol. 3, I (1994)

Editorial

How do you educate a Jack of All Trades?

To practise decision analysis one has to muster many skills:

0 problem formulation 0 modelling of the external world 0 modelling of preferences and beliefs 0 analysis 0 understanding and handling group and organizational processes 0 communication

to name but a few. Decision analysis is essentially multi-disciplinary. I guess my spiritual home- ‘home’ in the sense of place of upbringing-was (Bayesian) statistics. Other decision analysts have come to the profession from computing, economics, engineering, mathematics, psychology or any number of other disciplines. Now, whatever our upbringing, all of us feel at home in many disciplines. We are Jacks of all trades, and masters of quite a few to boot!

For this reason most of us belong to more than one professional body or scientific society. In many ways this is our strength. We continually learn from others working in disciplines whose interest is not primarily decision analysis. Moreover, we often contribute a novel and useful viewpoint to their debates in return.

However, strengths are often related to weaknesses; and our multi-disciplinary strength gives us a weakness in the education of the next generation. How do we train and educate decision analysts?

Currently, most decision analysts learn their skills after their formal education is over, either by apprenticeship to recognized elders of decision analysis or simply by doing decision analysis, untutored and unguided. Is this the best way forward? Will it produce enough analysts for the future? Should there be some form of professional education with agreed national/international standards?

One of the Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis’ objectives is to consider education. May I invite you to contribute to such a debate? We would warmly welcome letters and papers on the topic.

SIMON FRENCH

0 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.