Decision Support Basics

Chapter 3

Recognizing Types of Decision Support

For thousands of years, people have used decision aids, like checklists, to help in decision making. Record keeping is a way to have historical data for decision making. Building scale models was and is a tool to help in planning. Using signal fires for warning in times of war was a tool for communications and decision support. In many ways, we write technical books to codify knowledge for the next generation of decision makers. The world has changed, and now, more than ever before, managers need more sophisticated computerized tools for decision support.

In the past 30 years, researchers have created frameworks for classifying DSS. In 1980, Alter categorized decision support systems (DSS) in terms ...