Group decision support systems

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Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) were referred to as a Group Support System (GSS) or an electronic meeting system since they shared similar foundations. However today's GDSS is characterised by being adapted for a group of people who collaborate to support integrated systems thinking for complex decision making. Participants use a common computer or network to enable collaboration.

Significant research supports measuring impacts of:

• Adapting human factors for these technologies,
• Facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration, and
• Promoting effective organizational learning.

Group Decision Support Systems are categorized within a time-place paradigm.

Whether synchronous or asynchronous the systems matrix comprises:

• same time AND same place
  • same time BUT different place
• different time AND different place
  • different time BUT same place

Several commercial software products support GDSS practices. The Gartner Group has updated its views on GDSS and its relationship to webconferencing in a thorough document [1]

List of Group Decision Support Systems.

• Group Systems (was Ventana)[2]
• AnyZing - Zing Technologies
• GrouputerNet - Grouputer Solutions
• Meeting works

Contents 1 References 2 See also 3 External links 3.1 Other links (to be sorted / annotated)

[edit] References

• Thoughts on a Group Support System

This is Chapter 10 of The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst, by Stephen L. Talbott. (Sebastopol CA: O'Reilly & Associates, 1995). Hardcover, 502 pages. ISBN 1-56592-085-6

The University of Arizona developers claim a number of benefits for their electronic meeting system. In their own words, it:

- enables all participants to work simultaneously (human parallel processing);

- provides an equal opportunity for participation;

- discourages behavior that can negatively impact meeting productivity;

- enables larger group meetings which can effectively bring more information, knowledge, and skills to bear on the task;

- permits the group to choose from a spectrum of structured or unstructured techniques and methods to perform the task;

- offers access to external information; and

- supports the development of an organizational memory from meeting to meeting.

On the other hand, they identify no risks or liabilities, although in a general discussion of electronic meeting systems they mention in passing the potential for depersonalization by the electronic medium, together with the necessarily limited "view" offered at any one time by a video display screen. Having listed these as theoretical concerns, they do not go anywhere with them.

• Electronic Meeting Systems at Work

by Uday S. Murthy and L. Murphy Smith The authors describe the guidelines and strategies for putting electronic meeting systems to work and present details and comparisons on two of the available less expensive software packages.

• A Brief History of Decision Support Systems

by D. J. Power - Editor, DSSResources.COM

• Current trends in Computer Mediated Collaboration

Report by Philip S Tellis, Staff Scientist, ETU Division, NCST, Juhu

[edit] See also

• Collaboratory
• Computer-mediated communication
• Computer-supported collaboration
• Groupware
  • Group decision support system (software)
  • Hurricane Katrina: Redefining the Essence of Homeland Security(2) (2005).
  • Paul Stockton is Naval Postgraduate School Associate Provost in Monterey, California
    • Systems theory
    • thinkLets (Wikimedia mirror of related article that was purged.)
      • Futures studies
      • Futures techniques
      • Global brain
      • Project management
      • Social network
• List of collaborative software

[edit] External links

• Harvard Business Review (HBR Reprint F0603D)

March 2006 Conversation column by Gardiner Morse

"Connecting Maverick Minds" ... Geoffrey West, president of the Santa Fe Institute, a unique research community

that innovates by mixing disciplines, talks about why free thinking matters.

• 2006 HICSS-39 Thinklets (Collaboration techniques and processes)
  • 2001 HICSS-34 Mini-Track Topics (Collaboration systems and technology)
• 1996-GSS HICSS-29 Mini-Track Topics (Group Support Systems)
  • 1996-GUE (Groupware User Experiences)

[edit] Other links (to be sorted / annotated)

• http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw/cmcl.html
• http://www.ncst.ernet.in/vidyakash/reports/cmc-report.html#S2.