Pugh’s Matrix for the evaluation of alternatives

The Englishman Stuart Pugh (1929-1993) had the good will to create a matrix to help us make decisions in a practical way. Like a good mechanical engineer, the matrix is extremely simple to use, from its creation to the present.

The idea is described as follows:

• Situations of use
• Steps to follow
• A solid example

Situations of use

Suppose you must decide which is the best option, for example, when choosing a supplier, or when choosing among a group of candidates, or when evaluating technological options, and it goes on and on. It’s advisable, before anything, to know the principles and their importance (or weight). It’s possible that you aren’t the only one involved in the decision making so the process of making the selection criteria explicit and transparent usually results from relevant conversations.
Some examples of the principles can be:

• Time-to-Market: It’s of the utmost importance that the alternatives of a solution (It doesn’t matter if it is a new product, process, service, etc.) that we want to evaluate have an exit to the market as early as possible. You can assign it a numeric value (For example the range between 1 and 10, 10 is of the utmost importance).
• Another principle, as an example, can be the experience of the user and you can assign the user a weight in the same way, for example an eight.

Steps to follow

To round up, we only need to do three things:

• Identify the principles of choice and assign a relative weight
• Make a list of the solution alternatives
• Assign a number to each possible solution option and multiply it by the weight

A solid example

One example is enough to prove it. With the understanding of what has been mentioned before, we will illustrate this idea with a solid example.

Let’s say you are facing a problem in which you must choose among several options (or alternatives of solution). You now know the principles to help the decision making.

Step 1: Take the principles explained earlier

• Time-to-Market (weight of 1-10)
• User experience (weight of 8)
• Cost (weight of 6)

Step 2: You are presented with at least two solution alternatives that you can rank from 1 to 5.

• Web Solution (5)
• Mobile Solution (3)

Step 3: Build a table.

The rows can be the solution alternatives and its columns can be the principles. I placed each alternative multiplied by the principle weight.

• Web Solution (5)
• Mobile Solution (3)

In conclusion

The example mentioned above is obviously trivial. Enough with suggesting more solutions and elaborating complex principles so this conversation can become more interesting. The assignation of the dots, in a collaborative way, also demands certain rigor in the discussion, considering that you are elaborating the logic in which the options adjust to the principles. It’s recommended to take notes of what was said during the discussion to justify each numeric assignation.

The result is only one indication. In some cases the result shows an overwhelming difference, in others cases, the result shows how near the two options are to each other. Either way, the numbers are a guide.