SCMA 691 Special Topic:
Decision and Risk Analytics
Spring 2021

Focusing on each element of a rational decision and involving the right stakeholders make it possible to create significant value, mitigate risk, and avoid mistakes. In this course, you will learn how to structure a complex decision using diagrams and models that decompose the alternatives, uncertainties, and objectives and reveal the best strategy.



Decision Analytics is the final step in the analytics process. You have to collect your data (information systems), understand your data (descriptive analytics), make predictions about the outcomes of your decisions (predictive analytics), and then make a rigorous and high-quality decision (decision analytics). Dr. Merrick has used decision analytics throughout his research in oil spill risk management, counterterrorism, and supply chain management. He also served as president of the Decision Analysis Society.

Class time will be divided between short lectures to gain understanding of the tools and software and then the instructor facilitating the class in building decision models. We will discuss the probabilistic and statistical underpinnings of good decision-making and the psychology of bad decision-making. Deliverables in the first half of the course will be case studies and a mid-term. The second half of the course will focus on student projects. In previous offerings of this project-based course, students have:

• helped a major bank implement check scanning technologies at 1000 branches
• developed strategies to remove counterfeit currency from circulation
• decided how to fund a new educational institute in India
• assessed the impact of expedited drug approval
• developed new techniques for designing radiation treatments