Dear Colleagues:

We are pleased to announce that the Decision Analysis Affinity Group (DAAG) 2008 Conference will be held in Baltimore on April 16&17, 2008.  A networking event is planned for Tuesday evening April 15. Please mark your calendar.   DAAG 2008 is right after the INFORMS Conference on OR/MS Practice which will be held in Baltimore on April 13-15th, 2008, but in the different hotel.

 DAAG 2008: Creating Value for Diverse Stakeholders in an Uncertain World
Traditional opportunities for high risk industries are shrinking.  We live in an environment that is afraid of the negative impact and far-reaching consequences humans can have in a global environment.  Regulators are asked to protect the public from rare but serious events that are nearly impossible to prevent.  How can industries, governments, and nonprofit organizations find better ways of working in this context?

Decision Sciences provides a way of thinking and working in situations with high uncertainty and dramatic impact.  Our discipline pairs human ingenuity with practical action to give insight to our current situation and choose the best way forward.  We will highlight innovative techniques for collaborating with our colleagues and clients to find better options and create higher value choices for the future.

As in the past, DAAG 2008’s main focus is to provide an exceptional learning experience by showcasing excellence (including learning from failures) in the various decision analysis applications in the corporate business environment.    Because we are an interest group and not a “for profit” organization we organize this conference for professional success at breakeven cost basis.

DAAG was formed by a group of decision analysis practitioners from corporations in mid-1990 as a forum to exchange ideas and discuss the challenges we face in applying decision analysis in the corporate environment.   The conference has more recently also attracted participants from not-for-profit and the military. 

Current topics for the 2008 DAAG sessions are shown below.

Session Topic                                                                       Chairs                   Email Address

Best in INFORMS                                                               Bill Klimack  bklimack@decisionstrategies.com

1. Presentation of “Best” DA practice papers from INFORMS DA sessions

 

Portfolio Management / Strategy                                     Marilyn Metcalf     marilyn.a.metcalf@gsk.com

1. Using Portfolio Management and Strategy to win in the ever changing business environment.  We will showcase methods to enhance our understanding of our product pipeline and generate better options for its development.

 

Case Studies                                                                        Ann Skudlark      skudlark@att.com

1. Presentation of DA case studies – how to make the best of your opportunities

 

DA in Non-profit Organization/Government Greg Parnell        Gregory.Parnell@usma.edu

1. Use of DA in the  non-profit organization and government to further the mission

 

Decision Making Across Diverging Stakeholders      Jim Felli FELLI_JAMES_C@LILLY.COM

1. Driving decision making when stakeholders have divergent goals is a challenge.  DA applications and experiences in such environment are presented.

 

Comparing & Contrasting Successes & Failures       Stuart Harris       stuart_harris@earthlink.net

1. Lessons from successes and failures in the use of DA are critical for our future success.  Experiences and learning from the use of DA are shared.

 

DA Tipping Point                                                                Len Falsone          Len.Falsone@shell.com

1. Organizational adoption of DA is always a challenge.  We will discuss the experiences that led to a tipping point, or what barriers remain to be overcome in the uphill battle.

 

Human-side of DA                                               Deshpande, Prasanna [prasanna_deshpande@merck.com]

1. Understanding how humans make decisions is critical to successfully use DA to drive change. We discuss the challenges and experiences of bridging rational decision making with human behavior and intuition.
   

There will be special guest speakers from the industry who advocate and are responsible for the decision analysis function in the company.  One of our guest speakers is Mr. David Leonhardi from Boeing who will be speaking about the use of DA in the development of Boeing 787 Dream liner.  The other guest speaker is Dr. Larry Phillips from London School of Economics.  He is one of the founders of the field of decision analysis, received numerous awards from the Decision Analysis Society (DAS), and has been consulted many companies in the variety of areas including portfolio management.

Call for Papers:
We are soliciting abstracts for the above sessions.  Please submit your abstract to the session chairs or the conference chair.