COMPUTER SUPPORT FOR GROUP DECISION-MAKING

Modern organizations are increasingly using groups to make decisions and carry out tasks. Top management decision makers may spend up to 80 % of their time in meetings - not always to their satisfaction. Several methods have been developed during the last years to improve effectiveness of such meetings and particularly the quality of decisionmarking This paper describes a computer-based group decision support system designed to be used in small face-to-face groups. It provides a set of modular tools that can be flexibly combined to generate, structure and evaluate ideas and decisions. Initial lab and field studies indicate that such systems can improve both the process and product of small group decision making.