Developing Useful Management Decision Support Systems

The problems which are inherent in designing sophisticated systems that are actually used by the intended user, for the originally‐intended purpose, and at approximately the intended level of effectiveness and efficiency have become vividly clear throughout society in the last decade. Millions have been spent on complex systems such as the “personal rapid transit” system in Morgantown, West Virginia, with the result that shortly after it was operating, serious consideration was given to spending additional millions to dismantle the system because it did not perform as intended. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system cost hundreds of millions and still has not changed the transit habits of the residents of the area; autos still clog the freeways at rush hour and travellers are heard to complain that the fixed routes of BART are not sufficiently convenient to lure them away from their cars. Business firms and other organisations have similarly spent millions developing computerised control systems only to find that employees develop their own informal systems because of a lack of “trust” in the system.