Plausibility analysis

Activities

• Activity 1: Clarifying and itemising the problem or Task
• Activity 2: Determining functions and their structures
• Activity 4: Assessing and selecting the solution concept

Description

A plausibility analysis provides the results of property analyses, as well as analyzes or evaluations (critically) checked. This makes decisions safer.

Procedure

1. The analysis consists of four successive approaches, whereby after each step it must be checked whether the next step is appropriate or whether the contradictions have already been eliminated:
2. The first step is a pure check for formal errors when carrying out the property analysis or evaluation.
3. In the second step, the sufficient completeness of the characteristics taken into account is checked. Under certain circumstances, important disturbance variables or important criteria that play an important role in the intuitive expectations of individuals were not taken into account in the property analysis.
4. In a third step, the underlying models (analysis model, evaluation model) are checked. During the evaluation, the benefit equivalents (point values) are checked for their meaningfulness, as constellations can arise in which different importance of two criteria, expressed in points, do not appear to be justified and must be revised.
5. The last step is to check the interpretation of the results.
6. Finally, the procedure, framework conditions and results of the plausibility analysis are documented.

Sources

• Kumke 2018
• Lindemann 2009, p. 290, 291