Decision support

Why decision support at ISF?

ISF has an extensive track record in the use of system thinking tools and analytical methods that broaden the considerations for decision-making, specifically to:

• consider corporate and operational risk from new perspectives
• build the flexibility and resilience required to navigate future uncertainty
• prioritise options for investment based on a range of interacting factors
• incorporate qualitative costs and benefits into decision-making.

What we offer

ISF provides both qualitative and quantitative services to help your organisation make decisions under future risk and uncertainty. We can work with your organisation:

• to bring a systems-thinking approach to your decision-making and organisation practice
• to consider risk stratification beyond the conventional likelihood and sequence approach
• to develop and use visual methods (mapping, cost curves) to make decisions clearer, while recognising interaction and complexity
• to use adaptive planning tools and methods to develop strategies and pathways that keep options open for future consideration
• to design investment strategies to support an adaptive planning approach
• to consider multiple objectives and qualitative impacts through multi-criteria decision analysis
• to prioritise options based on economic costs and benefits as well as other parameters.

Work with us

We work with not-for-profit organisations, private sector companies, utilities and agencies across all levels of government. Whatever change you wish to see in the world, working with us means creating something that will last.

Our projects

Previous projects providing decision support to clients include:

• Real options assessment for the Lower Hunter drought response strategy (2019) – ISF developed a bespoke planning tool to help a major water utility prepare for future drought conditions.
• Network Opportunity Maps (2013-ongoing) – ISF developed a mapping system, based on data provided by electricity network businesses and available publicly, that supports decision making on appropriate levels of investment in reducing peak demand as an alternative to electricity network upgrades.
• Decision-making framework for allocating water during extreme water shortages (NSW Department of Industry, 2019) – Supporting the NSW Government in deciding how water from the Murray-Darling system should be allocated during extreme water shortages.
• Integrated resource planning for transport (Queensland Translink, 2010) – ISF developed a framework for decision making that enables a comparison between options that increase vehicle capacity, increase public transport services, convenience and patronage through mode-shifting, including structural and non-structural solutions.
• Corporate risk stratification (Water Corporation, 2020) – The Water Corporation of Western Australia commissioned ISF to provide research that would support improvement of the organisation’s risk management framework.
• Local government and landfill futures: integrated waste planning (Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, 2011-2012) – This research developed the concept of marginal abatement cost curves in an innovative application to the waste hierarchy, avoid, reuse, recycle and dispose.