the value of an alternative is evaluated in terms of goal attainment. Sometimes an outcome is expressed directly in terms of a goal.
For example, profit is an outcome, profit maximization is a goal, and both are expressed in dollar terms. An outcome such as customer satisfaction may be measured by the number of complaints, by the level of loyalty to a product, or by ratings found through surveys.
Ideally, a decision maker would want to deal with a single goal, but in practice, it is not unusual to have multiple goal (see Barba-Romero,2001; and Koksalan and Zionts, 2001).
Where groups make decisions, each group participant may have a different agenda. For example, executives might want might want to minimize costs, and stockholders might want to maximize the bottom line.
Typically, these goals conflict, so special multiple-criteria methodologies have been developed to handle this. One such method is the AHP.