PROACT Model, Consequences and Trade-offs

The “C” in PrOACT stands for understanding the Consequences. A consequence table can be used in making my decision, but there are three main concerns to be aware of when giving a value to each alternative for each objective. First, the values need to be an appropriate level of preciseness. Most experts agree that the human mind can only distinguish between 7-9 levels of variation, so a scale of 1-9 is most commonly used. These numbers are subjective and relate to my preferences and values. They may (and probably would be) different for each individual that rates them.

I learned to use Excel to analyze and compare the various alternatives, but it it hard to explain in words. Suffice it to say that my analysis concluded an internship with Eagle Mountain would be the best alternative.

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In most complex decisions, like in this analysis, there is no one perfect answer and tradeoffs are considered when evaluating the highest scoring alternatives..

The internship in Eagle Mountain wins most of the time, but the internship in Salem sometimes wins the majority of the trials. So it is important to look at the tradeoffs I would be willing to make.

If I decided to trade some emphasis (say, 3 percentage points) on experience for more emphasis on future job prospects, the weighted totals would change significantly in Salem’s favor and it would be the clear winner over Eagle Mountain almost every trial.

If, on the other hand, I placed more emphasis on location (increasing its weight 3-4 percent) and less emphasis on either experience or job prospect, then the weighted totals would go up in Eagle Mountain’s case but down in Salem’s, since the Eagle Mountain internship is  rated higher in location then Salem’s internship.

One thing that stands out is that the Eagle Mountain internship and the Salem internship are both rated at a 5 under the income objective, which is almost always the highest weighted objective. This gives me confidence in the results of my analysis, being that these two alternatives finished so close to each other.

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