Monikriteistä

Monikriteistä is a Finnish term used to describe approaches and analyses that evaluate alternatives using multiple criteria. In decision analysis and related disciplines, multicriteria methods aim to balance different objectives such as cost, quality, risk, and sustainability. The term is common in Finnish academic writing and public-sector planning to distinguish multicriteria assessments from single-criterion evaluations.

The concept is applied in many fields, including environmental planning, health technology assessment, urban planning, procurement, and policy evaluation. Monikriteistä approaches focus on how to measure, compare, and integrate diverse criteria to support rational choices that reflect stakeholder values and practical constraints.

Common methods and tools under this umbrella include weighted sum models, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), TOPSIS, ELECTRE, and PROMETHEE. These techniques differ in how they define criteria, quantify scores, elicit weights, and aggregate information to rank or select alternatives. They also vary in how they handle qualitative vs. quantitative data and in the treatment of trade-offs among criteria.

Typical workflow involves problem structuring, selection and definition of criteria, scoring of alternatives, determination of weights, aggregation of scores, and sensitivity analysis to test the robustness of results. Monikriteistä decision-making emphasizes transparency and justification of judgments, while accommodating subjective preferences and uncertain or incomplete information.

In Finnish usage, the term may appear as monikriteinen, monikriteistä, or monikriteisestä depending on grammatical context. It is closely related to the broader concept of multicriteria decision analysis and to practical decision-support tools used in research and policy settings.