Decision Support Systems Wisdom

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Drucker, 1954

Peter Drucker (1954) wrote in his chapter titled "Making Decisions" that ".. management is always a decision-making process." He notes in the same chapter that in regard to the "new" decision tools from Operations Research, managers "must understand the basic method involved in making decisions. Without such understanding he will either be unable to use the new tools at all, or he will overemphasize their contribution and see in them the key to problem-solving which can only result in the substitution of gadgets for thinking, and of mechanics for judgment. Instead of being helped by the new tools, the manager who does not understand decision-making as a process in which he has to define, to analyze, to judge, to take risks, and to lead to effective action, will, like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, become the victim of his own bag of tricks." (p. 368)

from Drucker, P. The Practice of Management. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954.

appeared in DSS News, March 11, 2001, Vol. 2, No. 6