What is a Decision Tree?

A decision tree, as its name indicates, is a scheme in which the possible consequences derived from the achievement of actions are configured according to an order. This resource helps to decide, to make decisions. Not only is this an inexpensive concept, but it can be really useful for day-to-day tasks. It will help us to know which activities to prioritize and the weight that each one of them receives.

Selection criteria for a decision tree

In order to select one or the other, we must base ourselves on a series of criteria and make certain decisions as they arise. Obviously the statistics and probability come into play when it comes to making decisions.

The selection criteria when choosing one decision or another in the tree will have to be chosen by us, since the decisions and actions that we take into account depend on us. The probability will do its thing so that the actions that are taken are one or the other.

In this way, we can avoid falling into doing certain actions that do not suit us because they harm us, as long as we are clear about the structure of our decision tree.

The structure of a decision tree

It is about the way in which the decisions we want to carry out are materialized. It is about giving an order to the decisions that we are going to make, as well as some probabilities that we think they would have. We can take the following decision tree as an example:

Árbol de decisión

Source: support.office.com.

Finally, comment that the probabilities of a phenomenon occurring or not within the tree depends on how well or badly we know each of the cases. If we know that an action or decision has a greater danger, it will be assigned more or less probability.

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