Page 14 - DCAP208_Management Support Systems

Unit 1: Support Systems

Notes
Figure 1.2: Managerial Decision Making Process

Decision Making Success

Decision Quality Execution Effectiveness

Diversity of ideas Commitment

Candor Conflict Understanding

Trust

Integrity Humility

Authenticity

Task Compare and contrast administrative and operational decisions.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
3. ......................... decisions are intended to order the functions of the organization in the
most cost-effective way.
4. ......................... decisions are the decisions typically made regarding highly routine situations
where little discretion is required.

5. ......................... decisions are designed to maximize a firm‘s profitability through productive
procedures.
6. Operational ......................... decisions are concerned with the long-term capability of an
organization to produce the required amount of output over time.

1.3 Computerized Support

Many people use computerized decision support for work and in recent years to aid in personal
decision making. Identifying the targeted or intended users for computerized decision support
helps differentiate the specific system. Knowing who does or will use a capability provides
useful information about how the content and design of the application might or should differ.
Let‘s go back in time to the “first” DSS developed by Michael S. Scott Morton (1971). That system
was designed to support the market planning manager, the production manager and the marketing
manager of a consumer product division of a large multi-business firm. “Every month they
developed both a production plan and a sales plan for the following twelve months .”

In 1978, Keen and Scott Morton described six diverse DSS: a DSS to help investment managers
with a stock portfolio, a DSS used by the president of a small manufacturing company to evaluate

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