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What is decision-oriented diagnosis for building DSS?
by Dan Power
Editor, DSSResources.com

Decision-oriented diagnosis is an approach and a way of analyzing the need for computerized decision support. It has been discussed in the academic literature for more than 25 years (cf., Stabell, 1983). I am concerned that today too many Information Systems analysts trained to work with transaction processing systems neglect this task and too many managers do not understand how important diagnosis is for building useful DSS.

Why am I concerned? I receive hundreds of email questions related to DSS each year, and a frequent question is "How do I build a DSS for X?" or "What kind of DSS do we need?" My response is "you are asking the WRONG questions." If you want to start a decision support project, begin by diagnosing problems and opportunities associated with current decision processes.

According to Aberdeen Sales and Marketing Advisor e-newsletter (August 22, 2007), "Executives and line-of-business management are increasingly feeling the pressure to enable timelier and more accurate decisions, and to align the organization to more effectively address KPIs." Building new, innovative decision support systems will be a priority, and many inappropriate DSS will likely be built.

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Trip Report from AMCIS 2007 in Keystone, CO

After a 10-hour car trip, the Power family arrived in Keystone, Colorado, on Thursday, August 10, 2007, for the 2007 Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2007).

The first session I attended at 8:30 a.m. Friday was on business intelligence. Karen Corral, David Schuff, Bob St. Louis and Ozgur Turetken proposed a model for estimating the savings from adding dimensional data to unstructured content. Full text keyword search often returns poor results. Karen Corral of Arizona State is the current past chair of AIS SIG DSS, the academic thought leadership group on decision support and knowledge management. Another paper by Mohamed Sidahmed looked at more traditional data-driven DSS for BI.

At 10:30 a.m., I attended a session on information visualization and decision support. In general, there were about 20 concurrent sessions in each time slot throughout the conference. A session on Planners Lab with Jim Courtney and Jerry Wagner was also at 10:30 a.m. Friday, as were sessions on virtual communities, collaboration, data mining, etc. Basically, I had too many good choices for sessions.

At noon, we had box lunches and listened to an excellent keynote by Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Chairman Emeritus, IBM Academy of Technology. He successfully argued IT is transforming organizations, but he showed us there is so much more on the horizon including virtual worlds.

Friday afternoon I attended a session on data mining methods and one on collaborative distributed decision making. Friday evening I attended 2 receptions and spent an hour talking with SIG DSS folks at a pizza restaurant. Frada Burstein from Monash University in Australia is the current Chair of SIG DSS, and she was able to join the group at AMCIS. Thanks Frada for joining us in Keystone!

Saturday started at Starbucks at 7 a.m. for a meeting of the Midwest AIS Executive Committee. New President Deepak Khazanchi, University of Nebraska-Omaha, seems to have a plan for moving the group forward. We discussed the plans for the May 2008 Annual Conference in Eau Claire, WI, with Conference Co-Chair, Matt Germonprez, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Join us in Eau Claire!

Sessions on Saturday also kept me busy, but I was slowing down by mid-afternoon. Took a quick nap and came back for the social event with great food, music and good conversation that was dampened by a short rain storm. I got soaked and went to bed about 9:30 p.m.

Sunday morning I attended an excellent session on values and ethics in the decision environment. Kieran Mathieson demonstrated his software called Dioptra. Also, we had a good discussion on open source and decision support. Thanks Glen Sagers and Bryan Hosack of Illinois State. I'm exploring open sourcing the PlanningDSS.com software. Opinions and suggestions are welcomed on this issue.

We left Keystone at 10:30 a.m. and the whole Power family attended the Cubs-Rockies game in Denver. My wife Carol and sons Ben and Greg are "hard core" Cubs fans. Sadly, the Cubs lost. We drove east to Lincoln, Nebraska, and on to Cedar Falls on Monday. All in all, a great meeting. The altitude tired me out, but the friends and conversations were energizing. Thanks to all my AMCIS DSS friends: Hugh Watson, Ramesh Sharda, Murray Turoff, Frada Burstein, Steve Alter, Bob St. Louis, Karen Corral, Ilze Zigurs, David Paradice ... I need to stop this incomplete list. LOL

David Paradice, Jacques Ajenstat and I are working on the SIG DSS pre-ICIS workshop scheduled for Montreal Sunday, December 9, 2007. The paper deadline is now September 10, and we can use help. Check here. My next trip is to the Teradata Partners conference in Las Vegas, October 7-11, 2007. If you are at Partners, say hi!