Objectives become criteria, and context in three facts
◈ 4 cardsWhat each stakeholder wants today is a decision criterion in stage 3; and two or three facts of business context are enough — not a full industry analysis.
Where criteria come from
Stage 3 will score alternatives against criteria. The criteria are not invented in stage 3; they are converted from the stakeholder objectives and constraints written down in stage 1. That is why the stakeholder list carries "what each wants" beside every name: each objective is tomorrow's criterion, and a criterion with no objective behind it is the analyst's preference wearing a disguise. The stage-3 rubric says so directly — criteria named, each traceable to a stakeholder objective — and the tracing is only possible if stage 1 wrote the objectives down.
Worked example — Lakeshore's objectives, converted
| Stakeholder | Objective | Becomes the criterion |
|---|---|---|
| Priya (owner) | reliable production | on-time reliability |
| Priya (owner) | preserve cash | cash impact — up-front outlay and debt |
| Key accounts | on-time delivery | on-time reliability (the same one — two stakeholders share it, which raises its weight) |
| Press operators | keep their jobs | staff impact |
| Bank | debt capacity | cash impact / debt (again shared) |
| Priya (owner) | volumes may change | flexibility |
| Everyone | the constraint: money | annual cost |
Seven objectives become five criteria — annual cost, on-time reliability, cash impact, staff impact, flexibility — and the two that several stakeholders share are the ones that will carry the most weight in stage 3. Notice what did not become a criterion: "the vendor wants the sale" — a legitimate objective for the vendor, but not one the client's decision should serve. Objectives are converted, not all of them adopted.
Criteria that do not trace back: "newest technology" (nobody asked for it), "what the analyst has seen work before" (preference), "ease of writing up" (whatever is easy to measure). Each of these is how an analyst's favourite alternative wins a matrix it should have lost.
Context in two or three facts
The second output of this lesson is the business context line of the stage-1 rubric — and the mistake is to write too much. AFM 132 teaches a full business-model analysis; stage 1 of a case does not want it. It wants the two or three facts about the business and its environment that bear on this decision, so that the reader knows the world the recommendation has to work in. For Lakeshore:
- A small commercial printer — six staff, $1.4 million revenue — so a $260,000 purchase is a large fraction of a year's sales.
- A mature, price-competitive market in which on-time delivery, not price, is what keeps a key account.
- An ageing asset whose repair cost has quadrupled in three years — the status quo is not stable.
Three facts; each one will be cited in stage 3 or 4 (the first when cash impact is scored; the second when reliability is weighted; the third when the status quo alternative is scored). A context paragraph on the history of the printing industry would cite none of them.
Convert the clinic's objectives
Grand River Family Dental: dentists want fewer missed appointments and low cost → no-show reduction and annual cost; Tomas wants no double-bookings → scheduling accuracy; receptionists want it simple → ease of use / training burden; patients want to book easily and be reminded → patient convenience (which also drives no-show reduction). Context in three facts: a two-dentist practice; eleven years on paper, so any change is a big change; 12 % no-shows, which at a small clinic is real revenue. Now the criteria exist before any product has been looked at — which is the point.