Decision Making in Groups
Groups: The term group refers to two or more (Usually up to 25)
people whose mission is to perform some task and who act as one
unit. The group can be permanent or temporary.
The group can be in one location or in several locations, and it can
meet concurrently or its members can work at different times.
A group can be a committee, a review panel, a task force, an executive
board, or a permanent team
Decision making is usually a shared process.
These groups meeting are characterized by the following activities and
processes.
o Meetings are a joint activity, engaged in by a group of people,
usually of equal or near equal status
o The outcome of the meeting depends partly on the knowledge,
opinions, and judgments of it participants
o The outcome of the meeting also depends on the composition
of the groups and on the decision making process used by the
group
o Differences in opinion are settled either by the ranking person
present or, more often, by negotiation or arbitration.
Despite the many benefits of group interaction, the results are not
always successful. The reason is that the process of collaborative work
is often plagued with dysfunctions, called process losses.
Dispersed Groups: GDSS can support meetings in which members
are in different locations and even at different times. New groupware
has been developed where corporate intranets or the internet.
The nominal group technique (NGT)
The NGT is one of the earliest managerial methods specifically
designed to support group work.
The method, developed by Delbec and Van de includes a sequence of
activities in decision making process.
1. Silent generation of ideas in writing
2. Round robin listing of ideas on a flip chart
3. Serial discussion of ideas
4. Silent listing and ranking of priorities
5. Discussion of priorities
6. Silent re ranking and search, which indicates that this procedure
is superior to conventional discussion groups in terms of
generating higher duality, greater quality and improved
distribution of information on fact finding tasks?
Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS)
There were two GDSS schools of thought.
The social sciences approach, which built on sociological and cognitive
theories of people working in the groups, to determine which types of
tools, would be most effective.
The Engineering approach, which examined how people interacted at
meetings and derived tools to improve the groups’ effectiveness and
efficiency.
Over the time both schools recognized the positive aspects of each
viewpoint, leading to an effective merger of the two.
What is GDSS?
According to Huber a GDSS consists of a set of software, hardware,
language components and procedures that support a group of people
engaged in a decision related meeting.
Following are the characteristics of GDSS.
o The GDSS is a specially designed information system.
o A GDSS is designed with the goal of supporting groups of
decision makes in their work
o A GDSS is easy to learn and to use.
o The GDSS may be designed for one type of problem or for a
variety of group level organizational decisions.
o The GDSS is designed to encourage activities such as idea
generation, conflict resolution, and freedom of expression.
o The GDSS contains built in mechanisms that discourage
development of negative group behaviors such as destructive
conflict, miscommunication, and group thing.
o GDSS is considered a subset of the broader field of Group
support system (GSS) or Electronic meeting systems (EMS).
EMS is nothing but an Information Technology (IT) based
environment that supports group meetings, which may be
distributed geographically and temporally.
Goal of GDSS and its Technology Levels
DeSanctis and Gallupe divide GDSS technologies into three levels that
differ in terms of the support provided to a group decision maker.
Level 1: Process support
Level 2: Decision making support
Level 3: Rules of order
Level 1: Process support
The goal of Level 1 GDSS is to reduce or remove communication
barriers. Items that are supported by such a system are…
Electronic messaging among group members
Network linking each member’s personal computer to those of the
other group members, the facilitator, the public screen, databases, or
any other common CBIS
A Public screen available at each group member’s PC or visible to all
members in a central place
Anonymous input of ideas and votes to enhance participation of group
members who prefer anonymity
Active solicitation of ideas or votes from each group member to
encourage participation and induce creativity
Summery and display of ideas and opinions, including statistical
summaries and vote displays
A format for an agenda that can be agreed upon by the group, to aid
meeting organization
Continuous display of the agenda, as well as other information, to keep
meetings of schedule
Level 2: Decision making support
At this level, the software adds capabilities for modeling and decision
analysis, process by providing systematic methods for task gains.
Features in this category include…
Planning and financial models
Decision trees
Probability assessment models
Resource allocation models
Social judgment models
Level 3: Rules of order
Level 3 addresses the group’s decision making process in terms of
controlling its timing, content, or message patterns.
At this level, special software containing rules of order is added.
Example _ some rules could determine the sequence of speaking, the
appropriate response, or voting rules.
Groups: The term group refers to two or more (Usually up to 25)
people whose mission is to perform some task and who act as one
unit. The group can be permanent or temporary.
The group can be in one location or in several locations, and it can
meet concurrently or its members can work at different times.
A group can be a committee, a review panel, a task force, an executive
board, or a permanent team
Decision making is usually a shared process.
These groups meeting are characterized by the following activities and
processes.
o Meetings are a joint activity, engaged in by a group of people,
usually of equal or near equal status
o The outcome of the meeting depends partly on the knowledge,
opinions, and judgments of it participants
o The outcome of the meeting also depends on the composition
of the groups and on the decision making process used by the
group
o Differences in opinion are settled either by the ranking person
present or, more often, by negotiation or arbitration.
Despite the many benefits of group interaction, the results are not
always successful. The reason is that the process of collaborative work
is often plagued with dysfunctions, called process losses.
Dispersed Groups: GDSS can support meetings in which members
are in different locations and even at different times. New groupware
has been developed where corporate intranets or the internet.
The nominal group technique (NGT)
The NGT is one of the earliest managerial methods specifically
designed to support group work.
The method, developed by Delbec and Van de includes a sequence of
activities in decision making process.
1. Silent generation of ideas in writing
2. Round robin listing of ideas on a flip chart
3. Serial discussion of ideas
4. Silent listing and ranking of priorities
5. Discussion of priorities
6. Silent re ranking and search, which indicates that this procedure
is superior to conventional discussion groups in terms of
generating higher duality, greater quality and improved
distribution of information on fact finding tasks?
Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS)
There were two GDSS schools of thought.
The social sciences approach, which built on sociological and cognitive
theories of people working in the groups, to determine which types of
tools, would be most effective.
The Engineering approach, which examined how people interacted at
meetings and derived tools to improve the groups’ effectiveness and
efficiency.
Over the time both schools recognized the positive aspects of each
viewpoint, leading to an effective merger of the two.
What is GDSS?
According to Huber a GDSS consists of a set of software, hardware,
language components and procedures that support a group of people
engaged in a decision related meeting.
Following are the characteristics of GDSS.
o The GDSS is a specially designed information system.
o A GDSS is designed with the goal of supporting groups of
decision makes in their work
o A GDSS is easy to learn and to use.
o The GDSS may be designed for one type of problem or for a
variety of group level organizational decisions.
o The GDSS is designed to encourage activities such as idea
generation, conflict resolution, and freedom of expression.
o The GDSS contains built in mechanisms that discourage
development of negative group behaviors such as destructive
conflict, miscommunication, and group thing.
o GDSS is considered a subset of the broader field of Group
support system (GSS) or Electronic meeting systems (EMS).
EMS is nothing but an Information Technology (IT) based
environment that supports group meetings, which may be
distributed geographically and temporally.
Goal of GDSS and its Technology Levels
DeSanctis and Gallupe divide GDSS technologies into three levels that
differ in terms of the support provided to a group decision maker.
Level 1: Process support
Level 2: Decision making support
Level 3: Rules of order
Level 1: Process support
The goal of Level 1 GDSS is to reduce or remove communication
barriers. Items that are supported by such a system are…
Electronic messaging among group members
Network linking each member’s personal computer to those of the
other group members, the facilitator, the public screen, databases, or
any other common CBIS
A Public screen available at each group member’s PC or visible to all
members in a central place
Anonymous input of ideas and votes to enhance participation of group
members who prefer anonymity
Active solicitation of ideas or votes from each group member to
encourage participation and induce creativity
Summery and display of ideas and opinions, including statistical
summaries and vote displays
A format for an agenda that can be agreed upon by the group, to aid
meeting organization
Continuous display of the agenda, as well as other information, to keep
meetings of schedule
Level 2: Decision making support
At this level, the software adds capabilities for modeling and decision
analysis, process by providing systematic methods for task gains.
Features in this category include…
Planning and financial models
Decision trees
Probability assessment models
Resource allocation models
Social judgment models
Level 3: Rules of order
Level 3 addresses the group’s decision making process in terms of
controlling its timing, content, or message patterns.
At this level, special software containing rules of order is added.
Example _ some rules could determine the sequence of speaking, the
appropriate response, or voting rules.
No comments:
Post a Comment