Introduction to Comparion

What is Comparion?

Expert Choice Comparion® is a collaborative decision-making solution that focuses on the achievement of objectives (gains) from a decision to choose one or a combination of alternatives.  Comparion is typically used by professionals responsible for strategic or tactical decision-making activities involving the choice of one or a combination of alternatives. 


Why use Comparion for important decisions? 

According to Herbert Simon,1 decision-making is at the core of all managerial functions.  Decision-making is undoubtedly the most difficult and most essential task a manager performs.  Executives rate decision-making ability as the most important business skill, but few people have the training they need to make good decisions consistently.  Planning, for example, involves deciding what should be done as well as when, how, where, and by whom.  Other managerial functions, such as organizing, implementing, and controlling rely heavily on decision-making.  Decision-making is part of almost all human endeavors.  While most decisions are connected with problem solving, many are not.  Managers may decide to take actions that will set entirely new standards of performance or decide to attain some new goal or establish a new direction for their companies.  Most managerial activities such as problem solving, strategic planning, and resource allocation, involve one or more components of what we now define as the decision-making process.

Process Overview

This process overview presents our structured approach to decision-making, incorporating model definition, precise measurement, insight synthesis, resource allocation, and the generation of detailed reports.

  • structure the decision model by identifying the objectives and alternatives, contributions, and other model definition and evaluation settings
  • accurately measure (collect input) the importance of competing objectives and alternatives with respect to the objectives
  • synthesize (results & consensus) information, expertise, and judgments, and conduct what-if and sensitivity analyses
  • allocate resources to a combination (portfolio) of alternatives if desired
  • generate and download the dashboard and reports (results) of the judgment data, model definition, etc.

After logging in to Comparion, you will be redirected to the Models list tab as shown below.  If you have existing Comparion models, you will see the active models on this page. 

You can open an existing model by clicking on the model name.  You can see several commands by clicking the arrow icon to the right of the model name, or by simply right-clicking a model row.

You can create a new model in various ways:

  • New Model-- creates a new model using the default options set. 
  • Upload From File -- creates a project from a file previously downloaded from a Comparion model and stored on your computer.
  • New from Template -- creates a model from one of the stored Comparion templates. 

When a Comparion model is open, the top-level menus (see Process Overview) described above are displayed:

Hovering over the top menu will display the sub-pages you can go to.

Alternatively, clicking on a top-level menu opens its overview page, providing a brief description along with widgets related to the same menu when hovering over the top menu.

You can view a more detailed help specific to each Comparion screen by clicking Help at the top right of each screen, or you can navigate our Full Help Center

Classic vs Modern UI

As we continue to enhance Comparion, both Classic and Modern interfaces are available, allowing users to seamlessly toggle between them using the icon at the top right.