Roger Alan Pick

Composite models in SYMMS

SYMMS is a model management system inspired by concepts from systems theory. The coupling of individual models to form composite models is supported. A description is given of the formalism and language used for specifying composite models in SYMMS.<<ETX>>

The impact of IS Department organizational environments upon project team performances

Projects depend on the effectiveness of teams to be successful. In the past, researchers studied team characteristics in an attempt to find successful combinations of traits that promote team performance. This study examines the relation of the organizational traits of centralization, formalization and maturity to the performance of the team. These organizational influences on the environment are related to overall project team performance, especially the traits of centralization and maturity. The results of the study suggest that organizational structure must be considered when fostering successful projects, particularly those related to planning and authority.

Benefits of Decision Support Systems

The benefits of a decision support system (DSS) can be subtler than those of other systems. This chapter identifies benefits from various DSSs as described in the literature and categorizes them according to their effects on various phases of the problem-solving process. The chapter also outlines techniques for assessing the benefits of a DSS before and after implementation.

A marketing category management system: a decision support system using scanner data

Abstract Point-of-sale scanner data provides a unique opportunity for analyzing consumer package goods (CPG) trends and patterns. Decisions of ever-increasing complexity are made possible by the amount of data available. Unfortunately, the analysis of such voluminous data requires complex techniques and processing requirements not available to many marketing decision makers. In this paper, we describe a prototype system which allows users to manage the complex models and scanner data to make forecasts in an interactive fashion. A limited test of the prototype allowed users not familiar with the underlying models to develop product forecasts.

Keeping information systems staff (happy)

Applying Maslow′s hierarchy of needs, suggests most information systems professionals have unfulfilled needs only at higher levels of the hierarchy. The exact level of the hierarchy will vary from person to person with differences between supervisors and their staff. Proposes that training can fulfil information systems′ personnel needs at several levels.

The Impact of Model Performance History Information on Users' Confidence in Decision Models: An Experimental Examination

Effective decision support systems must supply decision makers with information that allows them to make correct judgments. Unfortunately, human intuitive judgments are subject to a number of biases. Among the judgments that a user of a decision support system must make is the selection of an appropriate model. When a decision maker is presented with a history of a models usage and frequency of success during that usage, the decision maker must judge how confident he/she is in the output that comes from that model. We show, in a laboratory setting using 75 student subjects and 48 managers, that decision makers can be manipulated into irrational confidence levels. In a corporate setting, over- and under-confidence will result in either overreliance on unreliable models or failure to take advantage of a useful tool.

Comments on "Grosch's law re-revisited: CPU power and the cost of computation"

Taking Ein-Dors recent reevaluation of Groschs law one step further, the authors find evidence of different slopes for different classes of computers and the utility of an additional variable: the IBM or IBM-compatible factor. The analysis indicates that Groschs law no longer applies to minicomputers.

Expert systems and the implementation of quality customer service

Argues that expert systems are a useful tool in implementing quality customer service. Examines seven steps of customer service and illustrates how expert systems can support each step. Draws on the literature in the field to cite commercial installations of expert systems to support quality customer service.

Computer-aided software engineering's impact on the software development process: an experiment

Organizations today invest enormous resources in computer-aided software engineering (CASE) technologies with the hope of gaining significant increases in programmer productivity. In an empirical study, eleven three-person teams, composed of undergraduate Information Systems majors, developed versions of the same software system, a Pascal Pretty Printer; four teams used the same CASE tool and seven teams did not use any CASE tools. The major results of this study are: (1) most of the CASE projects were coded in less time than the non-CASE projects; and (2) all of the CASE projects met more of the requirements than the non-CASE projects. Each of these results was a statistically significant effect.<<ETX>>

A Formal Approach to Decision Support

It is often the case that the existence of a theoretical structure for an object provides for an easier design and implementation of that object. This typically occurs because the theory gives the builder a starting point, an unambiguous definition of the object, and a clear enumeration of the object’s properties. Some areas of computer science which have benefited from a theoretical structure include compiler construction, benefiting from formal language theory, and the relational data model, benefiting from mathematical logic. It is the purpose of this paper to describe a formalism which will provide the theoretical foundation for decision support systems.