Section IV. Making Decisions

Much of what we've been talking about so far has to do with automating business process, and taking care of transactions. That's a large part of IT in business, but it isn't the whole story. In this section, we'll look at another use of IT: supporting decision making.

It's a bit difficult to understand decision technology without a solid grasp of decision making itself. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. People make decisions in all sorts of ways, using all sorts of tools, from pencil-and-paper to sophisticated mathematical models. And then there's the "just guess" approach.

Let's start with a story about MaryAnn, a decision maker. We'll use her story to understand what decision making is, and what some of the challenges are. After that, we'll look at some technology that can help.

Here's the contents of this section:

• Chapter 11. Understanding decision making
  • MaryAnn's decision, part 1
  • MaryAnn's decision, part 2
  • MaryAnn's decision, part 3
  • Decisions about decisions
  • Summary
  • Exercises
• Chapter 12. Decision support technology
  • Modeling
  • Statistical analysis
  • Data sources
  • Middleware
  • OLAP
  • Data mining
  • Summary
  • Exercises
• Chapter 13. Group decision making
  • Group work
  • How IT can help
  • Case: Dioptra
  • Summary
  • Exercises