Page 17 - DCAP208_Management Support Systems

Management Support Systems

Notes Benefits exceed cost.
Complete control by decision-makers.
Easy modification to suit needs and changing environment.

Supports modeling and analysis.

Task Analyze the difference between Data-driven DSS and Document-Driven DSS.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

9. A ......................... is a collection of integrated software applications and hardware that form
the backbone of an organization’s decision making process.
10. ......................... DSS puts emphasis on manipulation of a statistical, financial, or simulation
model.
11. ......................... DSS supports more collaboration on a shared task.
12. ......................... DSS emphasizes manipulation of a chronological series of corporate internal
data or occasionally, external data.
13. ......................... DSS manages and manipulates unstructured information in from a variety
of electronic formats.
1.5 Management Support Systems

Management Support Systems (MSS) are computer-based systems that are supposed to provide
information to be used by or at least to support managerial decision making. Management Support
Systems is seen as a subset of Management Information System (MIS), which extends the information
retrieval capabilities of the end-users with ‘query and analysis functions’ for searching a database,
generating ‘what if’ scenarios, and other such purposes. Thus they are collection of all advanced
computer technologies for supporting solutions of managerial problems.

!
Caution Sometimes called Decision Support Systems or Business Intelligence but there are
some distinctions.

A major problem in management support systems development is requirements specification.
There exist a large number of systems development methods for MSS. Watson et al. (1997) also
pointed out that there are differences between traditional SDM and MSS development methods
and that the former are not very useful in MSS development. In a study focusing on the MSS
development methods used by organizations in the US, Watson et al. (1997) found that only two
formal methods were used, namely: the Critical Success Factors (CSF) method and the Strategic
Business Objectives (SBO) method. They, as well as other less used methods, focus primarily on
specifying managers’ information needs and how an MSS can fulfil information needs.

Although, they can be useful, they have one major limitation. Since they primarily focus on
information needs they are not complete in generating MSS requirements. More complete
needs requirements specification can be generated by focusing on managerial roles and how
an MSS can support a manager’s different organizational roles. We present an MSS design

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