Transcript Document
Managing Information
Systems
Enhancing Management Decision Making
Part 2
Dr. Stephania Loizidou Himona
ACSC 345
Objectives
To understand the characteristics of group
decision-support systems
To understand the characteristics of
executive-support systems
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Group Decision-support Systems
What is a group decision-support system
(GDSS)?
How does a GDSS differ from a DSS?
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Group Decision-support Systems
An interactive system to facilitate solutions
to unstructured problems by a set of
decision makers
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Group Decision-support Systems
How do we support people making
decisions in groups?
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Too Many Meetings…
Improved pre-planning
– Plan to make meetings effective and efficient
Electronic questionnaires
Office automation systems
Increased participation
– Make sure all attendees contribute fully
– Reduce occurrences of non-contribution
Networked systems for simultaneous participation
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Too Many Meetings…
Open, collaborative atmosphere
– Contribution from all levels
– No intimidation or judgement from ‘the boss’
– No domination by ‘the boss’
Networked systems provide anonymity
Idea generation free of criticism
– No personal criticism
Networked systems provide anonymity
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Too Many Meetings…
Evaluation objectivity
– Ideas evaluated on merits rather than source
Networked systems provide anonymity
Idea organisation and evaluation
– Organising ideas generated
– Time constraints
– Are the ideas relevant?
Structured tools for submitting ideas
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Too Many Meetings…
Setting priorities and decision making
– Priorities of discussion
– Encompass all ideas of attendees
Networked systems provide anonymity
Documentation of meetings
– Sufficient for continuation: minutes, actions
– How was the decision made?
Office automation systems, e-mail
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Too Many Meetings…
Access to external information (factual)
– Provides timely information
– Settles factual disagreement
External networking, but does this distract?
Preservation of organisational memory
– Non-attendees need to understand the
outcomes
– Only parts of meeting relevant
Office automation systems, e-mail
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GDSS Components
Hardware
– Conference facilities: support decision-making
– Technology: computers, audiovisual, networks
Software
People
– Trained meeting chair
– Willingness to participate
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Software
Electronic questionnaires
– Pre-meeting
Electronic brainstorming tools
– Simultaneous and anonymous
Idea organisers
– Organising ideas
Questionnaire tools
– Support for meeting chair
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Software
Voting
– Voting, ranking and weighting
Stakeholder identification and analysis
– Evaluate proposals and their impact
Policy information
– Structured help for wording
Group dictionaries
– Group definitions of words and terms
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Electronic Meetings
Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS)
– Attendees have networked workstations
– Meeting chair has console
– File server
– Projection from console
– May be in different locations
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Electronic Meetings
Supported by
– Office automation systems
– Voting systems
– Idea collation
Provides
– Confidentiality
– Anonymity
– Simultaneous submission
Helps to solve some of the meeting problems
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Executive-support Systems
(ESS)
Strategic level information system designed
to support unstructured decision making
Designed to be easy-to-use
Bespoke
External and internal data sources
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Benefits of ESS
Flexibility
– No specific solution models
Current and accurate data
Trend analysis
– Analyse, compare and highlight
– Traditionally performed by other staff
– ESS reduce burden
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Coursework
Select a publicly quoted company, and using
your research skills, evaluate how they use
information systems (IS) in their business
model. You should look at how they have
used IS in the past, how they use it now and
formulate some ideas as to how you think
they should use IS in the future.
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Coursework
Next lecture:
– Each have example target company
– Ideas on how to research IS in the company
– Ideas on how topics to address from course
– Questions
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