The AHP methodology as explained by Saaty (1980) has three main phases:
structuring the hierarchy, performing paired comparisons between elements and
decision alternatives and synthesizing the results. Once the hierarchy is created, the
general approach of AHP model is to decompose the problem and make pair-wise
comparison of all the attributes in a given level with the related attributes in the level
just above to which it belongs. Pair-wise comparisons of attributes at each level were
done on a scale of relative importance: 1 reflecting equal importance and 9 reflecting
absolute importance. The details regarding the weight values are shown in Wabalickis
(1988). In this case, it is assumed that the team of decision makers will be providing the
weight-values for various factors after reaching a consensus during a real-time
meeting. To illustrate the use of the AHP for the selection of a suitable PD
methodology, a step-by-step approach of the algorithm is presented