Instructions for the Concept Generation and Selection Document You can use the examples on the Website for a reference but remember they aren’t perfect!

•Purpose of the CG&S is: • To present a self-documenting decision process.

•That captures the thought process of the design team showing how the team arrived at the critical decisions of their project. Also, it captures the collective understanding of the issues for the team. It is often used to reflect back on decisions as more data comes to light later in the project.

Critical parts of the body of the CG&S document. You need a written section for each of the following; 1. Description of the alternatives considered 2. Discussion of the decision criteria; why were they chosen? why they are important? These should come directly from the customer needs/FSD.

3. The thought process that resulted in the weighting factors. This should be heavily driven by the FSD prioritized needs.

4. An analysis of the process of scoring. Why did you choose the various scores?

5. Review your results.

Ease of use Availability of information Cost Sum/Rank 40 40 5 5 5 7 6 4 4 4 20 5 7 3 2 100 500 620 460 360 6 5 3 500

Common problems with past team efforts: •Most could have used more verbal descriptions of the criteria, and the concepts being considered. One of the purposes is to exercise your writing skills.

•Most didn’t get the idea that design decision that was being mapped was an independent decision with independent criteria and weights. The decision criteria was often not discussed, the rationale behind the percentage ranking of the criteria was missing, and the reasoning that lead to the scoring was absent. This leaves the reader without any reasons why the choice was made. You need to include explanations for each value that is included in the matrices.

•Many of the scoring matrices were too close to call on the conclusions.

•Wasn’t obvious that the decisions that you analyzed were really the ones that would determine the success or failure of your project.

•General writing concerns: many used figures and examples without referencing them or giving a brief explanation as to why they were included and what you wanted the reader to take away.