Current Practices in the Development of Decision Support Systems

Decision support systems are one of the latest developments incomputer-based information systems. There are a variety of indications that their development differs in important ways from othertypes of information systems. This article reports the findings of an investigation of how 18 decision support systems were developed. Six major areas were explored: (1) the nature of the developmental approach; (2) user involvement in system development; (3) the time required for system development; (4) the incorporation of the decision maker\u27s style in the system; (5) the role of information systems and operations research/management science personnel in the developmental effort; and (6) specific procedures and techniques used in system developmen