Decision Tree Advantages and Disadvantages

Decision Tree Advantages and Disadvantages:- A decision tree is a diagram that presents conditions & actions sequentially & thus showing which conditions to consider first, which second, & so on.

> It is also a method of showing the relationship of each condition & its permissible actions

Decision trees are best suited for dealing with complex branching routines such as calculating discounts, sales commissions or inventory control procedures

Example

Draw a decision tree for the policy followed by a company in giving a discount to its customers.

decision tree

The decision tree is divided into two parts. The first column shows the conditions & the second column gives the outcome of the condition or the actions.

Characteristics of Decision trees

1. The root of the tree is the starting point of a decision tree.

2. Branches follow depending upon the conditions & decision

3. Each decision point is followed by the next set of decision

Advantages of Decision trees

1. The decision tree will be used for both binary & multiclass classification problems

2. A decision tree describes conditions and actions that enable the analyst to identify the actual decisions that must be made

3. It is fast at the build time & applies time

 

Disadvantages of Decision trees

1. It is not always the best roof for decision analysis

2. It is limited to one output attribute

It is not practical for situations with a large number of conditions & branches