Project Portfolio Management using AHP

Abstract

This study presents the experience based on the utilization of AHP method for the prioritization of projects in the Information Technology Department (ITD) of a large food enterprise. The company was using a tabular system in order to calculate adjusted weights. Comparison between the two methods allowed company's decision makers to acquire greater conscience about their preferences and relative importances being attributed to relevant selection criteria. The pairwise comparison process required by the AHP allowed the team of decision makers to obtain greater understanding of their individual points of view, and opening space for dialog and argumentation which led to a high level of agreement. At the end, a result comparison of both processes and the study of found differences, made it possible, according to the decision makers, to prove the superiority of the AHP method in terms of specification and transparency of the process, therefore allowing them to audit their decisions and to execute the sensibility analysis of the results regarding the weights given to each criterion.