Resource allocation methods may be helpful in situations where there are problems attaching dollar values to every benefit, as in benefit-cost analysis. Although resource allocation methods, similar to benefit-cost analysis, compare total benefits to total costs, the measure of benefit is much more generic, judgmental, and subjective. A benefit is assessed on a simple, 100-point rating scale. The increasingly costly versions of Web-based services (from modest to elaborate) are measured, as an index of overall performance, across this scale of holistic benefit. The "no investment--no Web service" alternative anchors the lower end of the 100-point scale (i.e., 0: least overall benefit), while the elaborate version of Web-based services anchors the upper end (i.e., 100: most overall benefit). Modest and moderate versions are scored somewhere in between (see Figure 6).

To assess the incremental advantage of investing more agency resources in Web-based services, the additional benefit of each alternative (D benefit) is divided by its additional cost (D cost), relative to the benefit and cost of the "no investment--no Web service" alternative. The version with the largest incremental advantage of benefit relative to cost would seem to be preferable. The difficulty with resource allocation methods, however, is the problem of reducing multiple performance measures to a single, aggregate benefit scale. This approach may be more practical than benefit-cost analysis when many of the performance measures are of the "faster" or "better" type, but it may be criticized as not sufficiently analytical.

Again you should try to decide between modest, moderate, and elaborate versions of the system. In this model, you may have a number of criteria, maybe six or seven, that would indicate advantages of the service. In the resource-allocation model we give the lowest level a 0 benefit, and the top level a 100 benefit. Then position the intermediate levels (modest and moderate) somewhere between 0 and 100. Given all of these benefits, instead of putting them on a dollar scale, put them on a utility scale from 0 to 100. For example, if the moderate level is fairly close to the elaborate level, that could mean that moderate might get an 80 utility. If modest seems to be fairly close to the middle between no investment and moderate you might give this a 40.

Costs are used more objectively. For the "no investment-no Web service" option, the cost would be 0 dollars. The cost worksheet would give us the costs for the other levels of investment (modest, moderate and elaborate). We then use this information to create a ratio of incremental benefit to incremental cost. You can treat these as pseudo-benefit-cost ratios.

By dividing the benefits by the costs, a ratio of benefits to costs is created. Within the frames of available resources, the agency should pick the level of investment that precedes the level where the ratio starts to decline.

Figure 6. Blank Resource Allocation Method

The above figure can be used as a guide. Fill out the benefits associated with the different levels of investment inside of the boxes (or on a separate sheet of paper), and use those to assess the benefit (between 0 and 100 for the different levels of investment).

This method is somewhat more subjective than the first. Judgment is required in determining how to aggregate the benefit across these multiple dimensions. For an example with numbers, please refer to Figure 15 on page 34.

For additional information, please see Sandor P. Schuman and John Rohrbaugh, "Decision Conferencing for Systems Planning," Information & Management, 1991, 21, 147-159.