How can a non-optimal near-Pareto solution still be useful in practice?

Conditions

• The solution is understood to be near-optimal rather than exactly optimal.
• This use case is framed as presentation and explanation, not proof of optimality.

Reasoning, step by step

1. Take one of the drawn solutions that is near, but not exactly on, the Pareto front.
2. Acknowledge that the solution may not be perfectly optimal.
3. Use the solution to show the stakeholder what the structure of the solution would look like.

Example

The speaker says a solution "although maybe not being optimal, you can still present it to a stakeholder" and explain that it is not perfectly optimal but shows how the structure of the solution would look. He points to individual drawn circles near the frontier while making this argument.

Common misconceptions

• Dismissing a solution as useless just because it is not perfectly optimal.
• Assuming that stakeholders require mathematically proven optimal solutions to make decisions.

Watch the explanation

Explore next

• Why does the lecturer say it is acceptable if heuristic solutions are only near the Pareto front?
• What is the goal of populating many near-front possibilities?
• Which heuristic methods are named in this clip for multi-objective optimization?