1. Why is intuition still an important aspect of decision making?

Because rationality and the use of normative models lead to good decisions, it is natural

to ask why so many bad decisions are made in practice. Intuition is a critical factor that decision

makers use in solving unstructured and semi-structured problems.

2. Define efficiency and effectiveness, and compare and contrast the two

Efficiency is performing an action that requires the least cost, time, and effort; while

effectiveness is performing an action that requires quality solutions to problems, hence in most

cases, requiring the most cost, time and effort.

3. Why is it important to focus on the effectiveness of a decision, not necessarily the efficiency

of making a decision?

Effectiveness of a decision is important because having accurate solution to a situation

leads to success. A person who is making decisions should put all his or her time and effort in

obtaining the optimal solution to the situation. Effectiveness of decision making does not dwell

much into amount of time need for the activity. In effective decision making, longer time of

analyzing but produces accurate answer is better than shorter time of thinking but produces

inaccurate answer.

4. What are some of the measures of effectiveness in a toy manufacturing plant, a restaurant, an

educational institution, and the U.S. Congress?

Some of the effectiveness measurements in a toy manufacturing plant include; production

of high-quality toys; the quota within the day, week, month or year is achieved.
 In a restaurant, some measurements of effectiveness, includes; cooking of high quality

dish/food; if the quota of the numbers of their customers for the day, week, month or year is

achieved.

In the U.S Congress, some measurements of effectiveness includes; attaining the

expected number of delegates in a meeting; implementation of new laws.

5. Even though implementation of a decision involves change, and change management is very

difficult, explain how change management has not changed very much in thousands of years.

Use specific examples throughout history.

Management of change is almost an entire discipline in itself, so we recognize its

importance and encourage the readers to focus on it independently. Implementation also includes

a thorough understanding of project management. Importance of project management goes far

beyond analytics, so the last few years have witnessed a major growth in ce1tification programs

for project managers. Implementation must also involve collecting and analyzing data to learn

from the previous decisions and improve the next decision. Although analysis of data is usually

conducted to identify the problem and/ or the solution, analytics should also be employed in the

feedback process. This is especially true for any public policy decisions. We need to be sure that

the data being used for problem identification is valid. Sometimes people find this out only after

the implementation phase. The decision-making process, though conducted by people, can be

improved with computer support, which is the subject of the next section.

6. Your company is considering opening a branch in China. List typical activities in each phase

of the decision (intelligence, design, choice, implementation) of whether to open a branch.

 Intelligence – is about scanning the possible internal and external factors that will affect

the action being done. Intelligence phase includes activities like defining the organizational

objectives, data collection, and identification of the problem.

Design – developing and analyzing possible courses of action. Design phase includes

understanding the problem, testing solutions for feasibility and generating other alternatives.

This can be done by creating models or systems and analyzing. A great example of this is doing

SWOT analysis or feasibility study.

Choice – After achieving recommended solutions from the analysis and studies, the thing

to do now is evaluating all alternatives.

Implementation – If the idea is feasible then there would be a higher chance of success

7. You are about to buy a car. Using Simon's four-phase model, describe your activities at each

step.

In Intelligence phase, I need all the information I can get about the car that I am about to

buy.

In Design phase, I need to check other cars or check other companies that are selling cars

and see if there are better options.

In Choice phase, after careful considerations of each option, I will now choose the better

car in terms of quality, price, and etc.

In Implementation phase, after choosing the best car, I will now buy the car.
8. Explain, through an example, the support given to decision makers by computers in each

phase of the decision process.

For example, a data warehouse will be able to support the intelligence phase by

constantly monitoring external and internal information, looking for early signs of problems and

opportunities through a Web-based enterprise information portal.

Nowadays, because of the advancement of our technology, the availability and

accessibility of data have increased for decision makers. The Internet and other advanced

database technologies helped the decision-makers decide in a more quickly manner.

For example, a regression model will be able to support the design phase by finding the

optimal solution to a given set of situation.

For example, a DSS can support the choice phase through what-if and goal-seeking

analyses.

For example, DSS can be used in implementation phase such as decision communication,

explanation, and justification

9. Some experts believe that the major contribution of DSS is to the implementation of a

decision. Why is this so?

A Decision Support System is believed to have a major impact on the implementation of

a decision because it provides justification to an answer. DSS acts like a confirmation or a

verifier so that the user will not be having a hard time thinking about the other options. Through

DSS, it assures the person to implement his or her decisions.

10. Review the major characteristics and capabilities of DSS. How do each of them relate to the

major components of DSS?

 1. Support for decision makers, mainly in semistructured and unstructured situations, by

bringing together human judgment and computerized information. Such problems cannot

be solved (or cannot be solved conveniently) by other computerized systems or through

use of standard quantitative methods or tools. Generally, these problems gain structure as

the DSS is developed. Even some structured problems have been solved by DSS.

 2. Support for all managerial levels, ranging from top executives to line managers.

 3. Support for individuals as well as groups. Less-structured problems often require the

involvement of individuals from different departments and organizational levels or even

from different organizations. DSS support virtual teams through collaborative Web tools.

DSS have been developed to support individual and group work, as well as to support

individual decision making and groups of decision makers working somewhat

independently.

 4. Support for interdependent and/or sequential decisions. The decisions may be made

once, several times, or repeatedly.

 5. Support in all phases of the decision-making process: intelligence, design, choice, and

implementation.

 6. Support for a variety of decision-making processes and styles.

 7. The decision maker should be reactive, able to confront changing conditions quickly,

and able to adapt the DSS to meet these changes. DSS are flexible, so users can add,

delete, combine, change, or rearrange basic elements. They are also flexible in that they

can be readily modified to solve other, similar problems.

 8. User-friendliness, strong graphical capabilities, and a natural language interactive

human-machine interface can greatly increase the effectiveness of DSS. Most new DSS

applications use Web-based interfaces or mobile platform interfaces.

 9. Improvement of the effectiveness of decision making (e.g., accuracy, timeliness,

quality) rather than its efficiency (e.g., the cost of making decisions). When DSS are

deployed, decision making often takes longer, but the decisions are better.

 10. The decision maker has complete control over all steps of the decision-making

process in solving a problem. A DSS specifically aims to support, not to replace, the

decision maker.

 11. End users are able to develop and modify simple systems by themselves. Larger

systems can be built with assistance from information system (IS) specialists.

Spreadsheet packages have been utilized in developing simpler systems. OLAP and data

mining software, in conjunction with data warehouses, enable users to build fairly large,

complex DSS.

 12. Models are generally utilized to analyze decision-making situations. The modeling

capability enables experimentation with different strategies under different

configurations.

 13. Access is provided to a variety of data sources, formats, and types, including GIS,

multimedia, and object-oriented data.

 14. The DSS can be employed as a stand-alone tool used by an individual decision maker

in one location or distributed throughout an organization and in several organizations

along the supply chain. It can be integrated with other DSS and/or applications, and it can

be distributed internally and externally, using networking and Web technologies.

11. List some internal data and external data that could be found in a DSS for a university's

admissions office.

Internal data – Includes personal account information, registration process

External data – Incudes University Profile, Sign-In and Sign up area

12. Why does a DSS need a DBMS, a model management system, and a user interface, but not

necessarily a knowledge-based management system?

A Knowledge-based management system is not necessary because information may be

provided through Web servers. Many AI methods have been implemented in Web development

systems such as Java and are easy to integrate into the other DSS components. One of the most

widely publicized knowledge based DSS is IBM's Watson computer system.

13. What are the benefits and the limitations of the AIS SIGDSS classification for DSS?

communications-driven and group DSS (GSS), data-driven DSS, document-driven DSS,

knowledge-driven DSS, data mining and management ES applications, and model-driven DSS.

Several other classifications map into this one.

COMMUNICATIONS-DRIVEN AND GROUP DSS include DSS that use computer,

collaboration, and communication technologies to support groups in tasks that may or may not

include decision making. Essentially, all DSS that support any kind of group work fall into this

category. They include those that support meetings, design collaboration, and even supply chain

management.

DATA-DRIVEN DSS are primarily involved with data and processing them into information

and presenting the information to a decision maker.

DOCUMENT-DRIVEN DSS Document-driven DSS rely on knowledge coding, analysis,

search, and retrieval for decision support. They essentially include all DSS that are text based.

The main objective of document-driven DSS is to provide support for decision making using

documents in various forms: oral, written, and multimedia.

KNOWLEDGE-DRIVEN DSS, DATA MINING, AND MANAGEMENT EXPERT

SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS involves the application of knowledge technologies to address

specific decision support needs. Essentially, all artificial intelligence-based DSS fall into this

category. When symbolic storage is utilized in a DSS, it is generally in this category. These DSS

are utilized in the creation of automated decision-making systems.

14. Search for a ready-made DSS. What type of industry is its market' Explain why it is a ready-

made DSS.

An example of a ready-made DSS is the Clinical Decision Support System. CDSS is

significantly involved in the field of clinical knowledge management technologies because of its

capability to support the clinical process and the use of information, from medical diagnosis of

the patient and to its long-term treatment. It is a ready-made DSS for the reason that it is made to

combine and analyze a medical knowledge base, patient’s data and an inference device to

produce case specific advice.

Reference:

SHARDA, RAMESH. DELEN, DURSUN. TURBAN, EFRAIM. (2015). Business Intelligence And Analytics:

systems for decision support (10th ed.). One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson

Education Inc.

"Decision support systems ." 26 July 2005. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://www.openclinical.org/dss.html>