Minimum Cost Consensus with Quadratic Cost Functions

Abstract

Group consensus is an important method of making business decisions. This paper describes the costs associated with decision making using group consensus, and then describes three methods for optimizing the cost of reaching consensus assuming quadratic costs. The first method finds the minimum cost of reaching consensus throughout the group. The second method finds the minimum cost of the consensus providing that all experts must be within a given tolerance of the group consensus. The last method finds the maximum number of experts that can fit within the consensus, given a specified budget constraint. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]