An Adobe Flex Application for Course Of Action Evaluation: Please Give Me Your Thoughts

Bob - a while back I had built a prototype for someone that ensured that the totals of the weighting did not exceed 100%. There are a few ways to do it (reduce all proportionally when re-allocating) but some button that re-balanced percentages on request might work. For example, two things at 100% and one at 50% would change to 40%, 40%, 20%.

Bob - a while back I had built a prototype for someone that ensured that the totals of the weighting did not exceed 100%. There are a few ways to do it (reduce all proportionally when re-allocating) but some button that re-balanced percentages on request might work. For example, two things at 100% and one at 50% would change to 40%, 40%, 20%.

Bob, Thanks for sharing this and allowing us to "kick the tires". I would like to have this sort of tool available for staff and decision makers to support "what-if" analysis for resource allocation and decision support. Here are some features that I would find useful: 1. Ability to expand the matrix. 2. Ability to convert the results to a chart or graph. 3. Ability to integrate multiple individual inputs into a an aggregated view. (similar to a Delphi process). 4. Ability to create the COA's based on different criteria. For example, Factor columns could be risks, technology, process, or whatever a user wants it to be. I know of several potential applications for the tool, just as it is. I think you have created a great tool with many applications. I hope that this becomes a service where decision makers can use to make better, more defensible choices.

Joe, Thanks much for checking that out and providing comments. Some of those are going to be withing my coding skills, but I'm probably going to have to leave some of those to other community developers. I think what I'll do in the new year is improve the program as much as I can, work on documentation, then host it somewhere like SourceForge where we can get more eyes on it and improve it more. There may also be some DoD repositories I can submit it to for continued improvement. Thanks again for the comments. Bob

Bob,Thanks for sharing this and allowing us to "kick the tires". I would like to have this sort of tool available for staff and decision makers to support "what-if" analysis for resource allocation and decision support. Here are some features that I would find useful: 1. Ability to expand the matrix.2. Ability to convert the results to a chart or graph.3. Ability to integrate multiple individual inputs into a an aggregated view. (similar to a Delphi process).4. Ability to create the COA's based on different criteria. For example, Factor columns could be risks, technology, process, or whatever a user wants it to be.I know of several potential applications for the tool, just as it is. I think you have created a great tool with many applications. I hope that this becomes a service where decision makers can use to make better, more defensible choices.

Bob, you have got something here. I would recommend getting this into the hands of the Naval War College Distance Learning. Optimally you could get a host of DoD and Non DoD students to work the tool during their JMO module. I think I can gather the email from my JMO prof if needed. Would have loved to have had such a tool during my first COCOM assignment. Would have made CAT activities a little less tense. Linking this tool with Analysis of Competing Hypothesis tool or even theater threat warning problem may be one of the little items which advance deliberate and crisis action planning activities. Jut a few thoughts. v/r JD

JD thank you very much for the feedback and encouragement. The thought of having this improve some aspects of the planning process at a COCOM gives me a real boost. I'm going to digest all the inputs above and continually improve this and then come out with a new version, hopefully first thing in the new year. As soon as I do I'm going to send another blast out to folks asking for another round of comments and will also seek to plug in with the folks you mentioned. In the mean time, please help spread the word to folks you think might have an interest, I would really appreciate that. Bob

Bob, you have got something here. I would recommend getting this into the hands of the Naval War College Distance Learning. Optimally you could get a host of DoD and Non DoD students to work the tool during their JMO module. I think I can gather the email from my JMO prof if needed. Would have loved to have had such a tool during my first COCOM assignment. Would have made CAT activities a little less tense. Linking this tool with Analysis of Competing Hypothesis tool or even theater threat warning problem may be one of the little items which advance deliberate and crisis action planning activities. Jut a few thoughts.v/rJD

Bob, very interesting. Some quick feedback: 1. It would be helpful to make column and row titles editable. 2. A function to add more factors or additional COA's would make this more powerful. 3. Along the lines of other comments it might be interesting to implement a "goal seek" function similar to Excel where you could select one COA score and request the app make it equal to value X by changing another attribute (either factor value or weighting value), but perhaps this would be too much like editing the data to support your decision...

Ian, Thanks much for checking out the app and for the comments. I'm pretty sure I can do item one. Item two is going to push my limited coding abilities but I think I can do it. Item three is going to be quite a challenge but that is the way to learn so give me time on that one. Thanks again!Bob

Thanks for the feedback on that. I got a few e-mails from folks saying similar things, depending on their configuration. It worked great for others for some reason. But I know I can fix this so it works for a wider swath and am going to fix this. Thanks again!

Hi, very intrigued by this but get a non-scrollable view that cuts off about half-way down the slider bars. Tried FF 3.5.5 and IE 8, re-installed Flash, etc...any thoughts appreciated...thanks

Thanks for the feedback on that. I got a few e-mails from folks saying similar things, depending on their configuration. It worked great for others for some reason. But I know I can fix this so it works for a wider swath and am going to fix this. Thanks again!

Thanks much for checking this out. I'm not sure what to do about the iPhone. I might need to build this in a different language since Apple still has not built in Flash support. I'll also keep tweaking the interface so it works better in Safari. Thanks again, Bob

Bob: Checked it out on two platforms so far: -iPhone--total fail due to lack of Flash on iPhone -Mac 10.6.2, Safari 4.04, partially functional, no scroll bar, so cannot see bottom of page, looks interesting

Some indication of sensitivity to inputs might be nice -- ie if one of the sliders is at 6 vs 7, and moving it to 7 would change the order of the values, it'd be useful for that to be highlighted, especially since the weighting factors are somewhat subjective. I.e. have as the option to have any selection that is within one change of flipping the answer highlighted? (or maybe narrow it down to (if this thing is changed by one tick the best choice will change as a result)

Bob:Checked it out on two platforms so far:-iPhone--total fail due to lack of Flash on iPhone-Mac 10.6.2, Safari 4.04, partially functional, no scroll bar, so cannot see bottom of page, looks interesting

Thanks for the comment Dan! That's the feedback I needed to keep developing this. I've already got ideas for improving it. I'll keep pressing ahead. Bob

Thanks for the comments, I have some ideas on how to do this and will keep improving the app. Maybe a first step is a graphic that displays when the number is at a certain level or whose size changes with the size of the number. I'll work up some ideas.

Some indication of sensitivity to inputs might be nice -- ie if one of the sliders is at 6 vs 7, and moving it to 7 would change the order of the values, it'd be useful for that to be highlighted, especially since the weighting factors are somewhat subjective. I.e. have as the option to have any selection that is within one change of flipping the answer highlighted? (or maybe narrow it down to (if this thing is changed by one tick the best choice will change as a result)

Thanks for the comment Dan! That's the feedback I needed to keep developing this. I've already got ideas for improving it. I'll keep pressing ahead. Bob

Very Cool!! Well done - I can see where this would be a great help. Can't tell you how many times I've had to do the math on a whiteboard.Dan