MCDA to support Futurists

In the previous post, we've examined the complexities, chaos and contradictions as push factors for postnormal times of higher education.  So what if we know what's postnormal times for higher education?  How do we make sense of such information for decision making in policies?

Common sense tells us that policy makers can use such information to make better decisions. But how do they navigate such wicked  and messy problems (Pidd, 2003; Ackoff, 1979) that manifest as complexities, chaos and contradictions in the context of higher education?  

The how here refers the use of methods, methodology or process that supports decision making.

This is where futurists and foresight researchers and practitioners play the role in facilitating stakeholder discussions to pigeon-hole alternative futures as plausible, probable, possible and preferable futures (Henchey, 1978, p26).  Sardar and Sweeney (2016, p2) argue that there is no probable in a world where uncertainty and chaos is the norm; and that there is no plausible in futures dominated by contradictions, hence making the narratives on futures derived from stakeholder discussions unconvincing and less meaningful for the development useful policies and strategies.  The changing nature of change creates a greater degree of uncertainties in the already complex, chaotic and contradicting nature of institutional structure and governance, and the management of academics and students; role of university and technology and infrastructure ( as discussed in an earlier post: What is postnormal times for higher education?).  So how do we make sense of these uncertain uncertainties for decision making?

Part I: MCDA to support futurists?

And against this backdrop, there is potential in examining the methodological aspects of frameworks  commonly used by futurists and foresight practitioners when facilitating the different stages of participative process of developing preferred futures for institutions, governments or societies respectively.  The proposition is to critically analyse the two frameworks namely  (i) Critical Layer Analysis (Inayatullah, 1998); and (ii) the Three Tomorrows of Postnormal Times (Sardar and Sweeney, 2016) and map them onto Multi Criteria Decision Analysis Process.

This examination of the three frameworks could potentially tease out tacit intricacies embedded in various decision making processes  for futures studies with a view to make those knowledge more transparent for efficient and effective decision making.


References:

Ackoff, R. L (1979) The future of Operational Research is past.  Journal of Operational Research Society 30, 93-104.

Henchey, N.  (1978) Making sense of futures studies.  Alternatives 7 :24-29.
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Inayatullah, S (2004) Casual Layer Analysis A Reader: Theory and Case Studies.  Tamkang University Press, Taiwan.

Pidd, M (2003) Tools for Thinking. Wiley, Chichester 2nd Edition.

Sardar, Z and Sweeney, J (2016) The Three Tomorrows of Postnormal Times. Futures 75: 1-13.

#futures  #postnormaltimes #MCDA #causallayeranalysis