The Efficiency Frontier and Beyond Win/Win

Parties often reach good solutions to complex negotiation problems. However, without computer assistance, value is inevitably left on the table, even when parties are using interest-based techniques.

This is the conclusion of many researchers, including Ernest Thiessen, PEng, PhD, on whose work Smartsettle is based.

With Smartsettle, negotiation cases can easily be modeled holistically rather than dealing with issues one at a time and, contrary to conventional wisdom, the more issues the better. A powerful computer has no problem with the added complexity, and each new issue has the potential of adding more value to the solution space.

When negotiation cases are modeled holistically, there is a boundary in satisfaction space separating feasible from infeasible solutions. The efficiency frontier (sometimes termed Pareto Efficient Frontier in economics) is the portion of this boundary that contains all the optimal solutions of a negotiation problem, i.e., those for which no party can gain without another party losing. Smartsettle’s objective is to find a fair solution on the efficiency frontier… beyond win-win.