In my work I regularly have to given clients’ advice about their options in a particular situation. There’s one particular area of work where at least the initial stages are quite mechanical: I just ask various reasonably objective questions and based on the (relatively yes/no) answers I receive, I ask certain other questions, rinse, lather, repeat till I get to The Answer. There’s usually an element of judgment at some points, and certainly there tends to be a heavy element of judgment involved in what one does with The Answer.
But what I was thinking is that it would make my work easier and avoid mistakes if I had some software into which I had programmed the decision tree that (at the moment) exists in my head.
I suppose in my mind I imagine the software would offer me a question, I would answer that and depending on my answer it would ask me another question, and then another and so on till eventually it would say “the situation is X, Y, and Z”
Does anyone know what one would call the type of software I’m looking for? Does anyone have a recommendation for freebie type software of this sort? I wouldn’t mind paying, ultimately, but I’d like to play about before committing.