Decision tables -- an underutilized tool? [editorial]
Glasziou Pp · Medical Decision Making · 1994
A systematic procedure exists for dissecting a complex policy into rules which can be converted into a tabular representation of propositional logic (a decision table) to enable simple checks for consistency completeness and redundancy. The decision table is therefore an essential tool for checking completeness and consistency. Since something can be completely and consistently wrong however the best use of a decision table may be in devising policy rather than for routine after-the-fact checks. Important differences exist between decision tables and decision trees. Tables insist that all alternative states be considered and ignore the sequence of information collection (which greatly simplifies the presentation of multiple tests). Also a number of useful tools (such as the Quine-McCluskey algorithm) can reduce the table to its simplest set of rules.