Textbook:Strategic Approach in Multi-Criteria Decision Making: A Practical Guide for Complex
Author(s): Nolberto Munier

Description
there is a clear advancement in the MCDM field with the incorporation of new methods, the discipline that analyses MCDM processes has evolved in a way that might indicate that the roots of its own existence have been forgotten, by not considering some critical aspects that are key in the correct interpretation of a scenario, and regardless which method is used. The authors of this book observe that under the comfortable ‘umbrella’ of continuity, there is an incessant number of MCDM methods that are not restricted by any kind of normative or protocol to guide them, nor to assure the quality of the assessment.

The coursebook is clearly structured in three different parts. The first part is devoted to exploring the history and development of the discipline and the way it is performed nowadays. It specifically involves Chaps. 1 and 2. Included in this part, the book highlights those drawbacks and problems that scholars have identified in the different MCDM methods and techniques. As indicated above, the motivation to raise this aspect is to provoke the necessary debate on the validity of the theoretical pillars that sustain the discipline, considering the generalized absence of representing reality.
The second part of the book includes Chaps. 3, 4, and 5 with the intention of answering an important question: What should be done to assure a quality MCDM process? The purpose is to offer a theoretical response to the drawbacks identified in the first part.
Finally, the third part encompasses Chaps. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 which introduces and explains in simple language and by using graphic aids, the Linear Programming concept and the SIMUS method, based on Linear Programming, as the new toolkit that is suggested to deal with MCDM process. Chapter 8, analyses and wholly exemplifies a new procedure for sensitivity analysis, which is always of the utmost importance in decision-making. As in most parts of the book, the explained procedure is innovative and based on sound mathematical principles. It provides examples that sustain what was said above about the kind of information that stakeholders need.
Chapter 9 is devoted to group decision-making using SIMUS.  An actual and complex example is provided together with a simulation of debate amongst members of the group. The system is based in a progressive analysis of the scenario by sequentially addressing each objective, considering potential changes and examining their applicability or not, measured by quantified values.
Chapter 10 tackles a very important aspect; it is related with selecting the best strategy and using the very well-known SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) technique. It is exemplified by a complex and actual scenario, and the result quantitatively selects the best strategy, and in so doing, it is a step forward, since SWOT finishes by determining the SWOT matrix of strategies, but not selecting the best one.
Chapter 11 analyses the reasons for the lack of agreement amongst results from different methods and proposes the use of a proxy method which would determine the closest solution to the proxy.

Chapter 12 addresses six complex, practical and actual cases on six different fields such as the construction industry, government policies, hydroelectric projects, upgrading villages’ infrastructure, urban development in a large city and ‘fabricat-ing’ the best road between an airport and the downtown of a city. Its purpose is to demonstrate that complex scenarios can be modelled and solved adequately following a structured procedure such as the one we propose.
Finally, in the Appendix, the theory of Linear Programming is explained in tabular format for easy comprehension. It is completed with a very important issue, since it demonstrates through eight different examples that SIMUS is not subject to rank reversal.