There is a significant gap between the input and output information of many systems analysis models and what decision makers can control and care about. What they can control is the choice of policies, not the scenarios. What they care about is how well their objectives are met, which may include how well their stakeholders’ concerns are addressed. To enhance the usefulness of applied systems analyses to decision makers requires expanding the breadth of these analyses to have the decision makers’ policies as inputs, and the impacts that they directly care about as outputs. These outputs need to be linked to value models that quantitatively represent the preferences of a decision maker as an equation. A value model includes the fundamental objectives of the decision maker, its risk attitudes, and its value trade‑offs. This presentation describes the steps required to construct a useful and practical value model. For each step, the information required is indicated and how the information should be obtained is discussed. In addition, common pitfalls and mistakes at each of the steps are indicated.
