Cleland and King, 1975

David Cleland and William King discussed manager-analyst MIS design in their classic book. They noted "Computer systems analysts generally have little awareness of the myriad complexities of management decisions. They cannot know of all the subjectivities and intangibles which go into such decisions. Thus, the systems which they design do not account for such subtleties and are often no more helpful to a manager than were the stacks of hand-produced reports which he previously obtained. There is some worth to the speed with which the computerized systems make data available, but computer systems have clearly not made for a revolution in management, as many thought they would.

"The resolution for this dilemma may lie in the recognition that neither the manager nor the analyst alone can design and implement a true management information system; rather, they must work cooperatively. Each can, and must, make a unique contribution to the effort if it is to be successful; and anything short of complete cooperation will probably result in a systems design which is either ineffective or inefficient." (p. 157)

Cleland, David I., and William R. King, Systems Analysis and Project Management (Second Edition), New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1975.

appeared in DSS News, May 20, 2001, Vol. 2, No. 11