A graphical representation of uncertainty in complex decision making

The analysis of types of uncertainty and how they affect decision making in complex settings can be considerably simplified by addressing three core questions: how uncertain we are, how aware we are of uncertainty and how context and perception affect uncertainty. The continuum nature of the answers to these questions leads naturally to represent uncertainty in a 3D level-awareness-perception plot. This representation can help monitoring and assessing the dynamics of knowledge and uncertainty generation during a project and how it affects decision making. Of particular importance are how the level of unresolved uncertainty at the moment of decision making is represented in the decision itself and how the objective codification of both knowledge and the decision impact the events following a project. This leads to highlighting a further type of uncertainty which can be generated by the decision making itself and by its representation in the form of codified knowledge.