MIS-REVIEWER-FINALS

Decision Support System

It is a type of information system that helps executives make better decisions using historical and current data derived from internal information systems, as well as external sources.

Dominant technological component

Five (5) generic categories can be proposed.

Target Users

A DSS can target internal (employees, executives, board of directors, managers) or external (consumers, regulators, investors, suppliers) stakeholders.

System Goals and Applications

A DSS can have specific or very generalized objectives. This is usually based on a specific application the system will be dealing with.

Deployment Technology

A DSS can be deployed on either a mainframe computer, a client/server LAN network, or a web-based system architecture.

User Interface

The most commonly seen component, it contains the various way for a user to interact with the system. A typical user interface may contain menus, submenus, buttons and icons that will allow the system user to access the various resources available to the system.

Database

This component holds all digitized data and information essential for the system’s tasks. Databases can have specialized components apart from their usual purpose of holding data.

Models and Analytical Tools

These are the technical components that will allow the system accomplish its scope and tasks; each system may use different components depending on their purpose.

Architecture and Network

These refer to how the system hardware is organized, how software and data is distributed, and how other components of the system are integrated and connected. Organizations can opt for a networked or a web-based architecture, depending on the system applications.

Data-Driven DSS

This type of DSS can take a very large amount of data available from various other information systems (such as Transaction Processing Systems) and derive useful information for decision-making.

Model-Driven DSS

This type of DSS emphasizes access to and manipulation of a data model in order to help decision-making for possible and probable situations.

Knowledge-Driven DSS

This type of DSS focuses on knowledge as its primary framework factor.

Document-Driven DSS

This type of DSS, also known as the Knowledge Management System, is a currently evolving system capable of helping managers work on unstructured digital documents and web pages.

Communications-Driven and Group DSS

This type of DSS, previously known as the Group Decision Support System (GDSS) or Groupware, includes communication, collaboration, and decision support technologies that do not fit with other DSS types.

Inter-Organizational/Intra-Organizational DSS

These types of DSS put external (clients, customers, business partners, etc.) and internal (departments in the organization, employees, managers, etc.) as its primary key factor.

Function-Specific/General Purpose DSS

These types of DSS are designed to support more specific functions for specific types of industries or businesses.

Group Decision Support System

It is a type of decision support system that helps organization managers and executives reach a consensus during events that require their collective opinions and proposals.

Pre-Planning

This element addresses the agendas of a decision-making meeting. This element handles the topics of the agenda, the end goal of collaboration (whether it is a decision, or further plans of collaboration if consensus has not been reached), and possible future agendas.

Collaboration Facilitation

This element ensures that ideas and communications are free-flowing, without interruptions or hindrances.

Evaluation Objectivity

This element provides equal opportunity for collaborators by eliminating “office politics”: the practice of dismissing ideas based on the person who presented them.

Documentation

This element takes care of logging information from the collaboration, such as meeting minutes and resulting decisions made by the group. This in turn allows geographically challenged members to know what took place.

Digitized Input is Required

Unlike traditional meetings, where ideas, comments and criticisms can be conveyed by oral discussion, a GDSS may require different types of digitized input, such as typed input, graphic presentations, or digital spreadsheets.

Moderation is Limited

A GDSS’s capabilities become liabilities when multiple discussions about a decision take place. Since the system requires digitized input, people capable of using the GDSS effectively may have the upper hand in any collaboration or discussion.

Maintenance Costs may be High

Despite the system reducing costs, the cost of maintaining a high-end facility that can utilize the GDSS for group collaboration may erase such benefits. Implementations may have to be justified by having the facility and the system be regularly used, though an option of leasing such a facility to academic institutions and other companies may also generate minor revenue in this regard.

The GDSS may Require a Facilitator

Some GDSS may be complicated, which means a facilitator who can lead collaborations, help users and control the system within the network may be needed. This opens up a few complications, such as whether to train such a person from the existing employee pool, or hire someone on a project-based basis, which may not be favorable.

Hardware

The hardware characteristic handles broader technologies now: it includes not just computers and other equipment, but also the conference facilities, audiovisual equipment, and networking equipment that will connect each collaborator to the group.

Persware/Peopleware

This characteristic now involves not just the actual collaborators, but also the facilitators of the group collaboration, such as meeting planners and hardware operator staff.

Software

This characteristic, in turn, not just involves the use of specialized tools and traditional programs, such as operating systems; it now involves reworked tools that have additional capabilities and network connectivity that allow more people to be involved in decision-making collaborations.

Questionnaire Tools

This allows questioning, data-gathering and investigation for planning and collaboration. Certain information systems and standalone platforms offer customizable, digital versions of this tool.

Electronic Brainstorming

This tool facilitates creations of proposals, ideas, and solutions that will help in making decisions. Features may allow the elimination of office politics interfering with the decision-making process by making submitted proposals, decisions, votes and/or opinions anonymous.

Stakeholder Identification

This tool determines the impact of the group’s decision. It may also have the capability to weigh each collaborator’s vote on a decision before finalizing it.

Group Dictionaries

This allows the system to reduce a particular problem or concern into distinct interpretations. These interpretations then allow decision-makers to make proper decisions.

Executive Support System

Is a type of support system tailored specifically for executive use. The need for the system arises due to the fact that DSS implementations are specific to select personnel and/or departments, meaning that executives will have little use for them.

Information Filtering

An ESS can sift through vast volumes of information. This allows an executive or senior manager to narrow down the details surrounding a decision without the irrelevant data.

Data Linking

An ESS is able to link data from various sources, both internal and external, in order to provide the amount and kind of information that executives find useful. Since an ESS’s tools provide an easy way to manipulate and filter information, additional capabilities such as Internet connectivity can be incorporated to add more flexibility to the system.

Executive Role Support

An ESS can support the three (3) basic roles of an executive: interpersonal roles (leader, liaison, etc.), informational roles (spokesperson, monitor, announcer, etc.), and decisional roles (negotiator, entrepreneur, etc.).

Simplicity

An ESS is considered an oversimplified information system due to the fact that it does not need in-depth computer experience to use. Executives can easily navigate and use the system without the complications involving specific functions and tools.

Information Processing

An ESS can facilitate the timely delivery of data through better filtering, tracking and processing in the shortest amount of time, which in turn produces relevant information for a senior manager for quick, efficient decision-making.

Flexibility

An ESS can be advantageous to organizations that have fewer layers of management, as it can be integrated into other information systems and subsystems through emerging new technologies.

Computer Skill Requirement

Usage of an ESS assumes that executives and senior managers know how to operate computers.

Long Processing Time

Depending on the volume of information, analysis and processing of data to get the desired information may take a considerable amount of time.

Limitations on Summarized Information

Information derived from specific data may be insufficient for executives to base a decision on, requiring them to derive data from other systems (such as DSS) to get specific data.

Difficulty in Quantifying Benefits

Since a decision processed by an ESS is based on summarized information, it may be hard for an executive to justify the said decision if specific details regarding the decision are queried.

Difficulty in Maintaining Database Integrity

Since an ESS derives on large volumes of data, some of them external, the data inside the database may not produce accurate or correct results, which may further complicate the processing of information.