Managing decision making for case study

A group of academics want to set up meetings and decide to investigate the availability and appropriateness of different electronic meeting systems and group decision support systems. The location has been set up and the decision as to whether to use the existing hardware or purchase new hardware is a matter of heated discussion. The existing hardware consists of computers of different speeds, age, operating system, screen size, only some equipped with web cams.

The people involved in the use of the new system are of varying levels of computer literacy, ranging from staff who have worked closely with the IT department, those with some technical knowledge and the ability to “find out how to use things by playing”, and those with limited knowledge or confidence in using technology. The details of the staff members are included on the portal.

The staff have agreed to enlist the assistance of a consultant to investigate some alternative systems and make some recommendations about the systems available. At this time, the budget has not been specified and the number of licences required is unknown.

The staff foresee the use of such systems both for academic meetings and for single / multi tutorial class sessions involving a minimum of 12 participants. These participants may be a combination of internal and external students or may take place across campuses. There is also the possibility that the system will be hired out for use to businesses at a cost yet to be determined.

Using Simon’s model of decision making:

1. Investigate available electronic meeting systems and group decision support systems

2. Select 4 systems and discuss

a. what do they do

b. functionality of the systems

c. similarities and differences between the selected systems
d. recommendations of the best system based on features

include any references to the selected systems

3. Build a DSS using Excel to analyse which would be the best for the academics to suit their needs. Use what if scenarios to compare the selected systems. A guide to the set up for the spreadsheet wil be available.
introduce the value of usingcollaborative systems to improve the effectiveness of decision making in business.
System Comparison

In this section you discuss the differences between EMS and GDSS

discuss the features of each of the systems, comparing these to the requirements as per the assignment guidelines. Include discussion of the need for any new hardware. NB as mentioned in the spreadsheet guidelines, you do not need to discuss / investigate costings on the hardware requirements, just discuss what is necessary.

Reflection

This section needs to compare the decision styles of the group members and discuss any problems with group dynamics. You also need to discuss how you came to the decision about which of the 4 systems chosen was to be recommended to the organisation management.
To what degree do / can different decision styles have on decision making in business?

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