Ch. 4
Designing and Developing Decision Support Systems

As noted in the overview, three approaches to DSS development are discussed in the literature and used by practitioners. The approaches or methodologies have been called a variety of names. Essentially we begin by focusing on decisions and decision processes in the decision-oriented design steps, then a project manager or an end-user implement a more or less structured development methodology.

Figure 4.1 shows a recommended process hierarchy for DSS design and development. The process begins with decision-oriented diagnosis and feasibility analysis and then moves to in-house or outsourced development of the proposed Decision Support System using one of three development approaches. We will examine these alternative approaches.