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DSS News
by D. J. Power
March 31, 2002 -- Vol. 3, No. 7
A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
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Check the Detailed Hyperbook Table of Contents
at DSSResources.COM
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Featured:
* DSS Wisdom
* Ask Dan! - What is an example of a decision process?
* What's New at DSSResources.COM
* DSS News Stories
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DSS Wisdom
"There are almost as many perspectives on decision making as there are
individuals and organizations involved in the process. If a particular
choice happens to differ greatly from the values and interests of an
individual or group affected by its consequences, it is labeled
nonrational. In other instances, a decision maker may proceed on the
naive assumption that he possesses perfect information, in which case he
views alternatives with complete certainty regarding the outcome. Often
this view is conditioned heavily by the propensity of the decision maker
for accepting or avoiding risk as well as ingrained perceptual biases
below his threshold of awareness." (p. 297)
from Harrison, E. Frank. The Managerial Decision-Making Process.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975.
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Ask Dan!
What is an example of a decision process?
This is a question I receive frequently when I ask students to conduct a
decision process audit. It should be an easy question to answer ...
right! Actually describing and explaining an example of a decision
process can be difficult depending upon what one defines as a decision
process. A decision process refers to the steps or analyses that lead to
a decision and a specific decision process is often described in terms
of inputs to the process, transformations during the process, and
outputs from it. Also, decision processes are often part of larger
business or organization processes and hence can be hard to identify and
define.
If one examines the behavior of individual decision makers, one finds
decisions to buy a new house or car, have a child or accept a job offer.
Although some decision makers use systematic decision processes and
even DSS for these decisions, many don't. Describing or specifying an
individual's decision process related to a specific decision is often
unobservable and hence makes a poor example of a decision process.
At the level of analysis associated with groups or organizations, one
finds many examples of decision processes. At the senior management
level, processes often exist to develop annual and long-range plans, to
allocate resources, and to prepare capital budgets. Managers also often
participate in annual budgeting processes and some companies have
elaborate performance appraisal systems. Most companies have staff who
make purchasing decisions. One can mention portfolio management
decisions and scheduling decisions.
One of my "favorite" examples of a decision process is in Hammer and
Champy (1993). They describe a process at IBM Credit that is a classic
case of a poorly designed decision process. A request for financing is
logged on "a piece of paper" in step one. After moving that paper around
in four more steps, a decision to approve or not is finally made. The
entire process "consumed six days on average, although it sometimes took
as long as two weeks (p. 37)". The description is colorful, the agony
for the frustrated senior managers seems plausible. The example also
illustrates that reengineering can improve decision processes. The
structure of the process was changed, improved decision support was
developed and the turnaround on a request for financing was reduced to
just "four hours." Productivity improved dramatically.
Another good example for students is the college admission decision
process. The variety of activities, criteria and participants associated
with this decision process is extensive. Some colleges use simple rules
in their processes. For example, some public universities admit all
students who graduated from a state high school in the top 50% of their
graduating class and had an ACT test composite score of 20. Such rules
are cheap to execute and easy to understand, but they are not very
interesting. The decision processes at the "highly selective" colleges
and universities are much more elaborate and interesting.
Princeton's decision process is a good example. In The Daily
Princetonian, Emma Soichet wrote an article called "Admitting the
process" (12/11/2000). The article notes "30 admission staff members
work, assembling each applicant's personal file while combing it for
details that could lead to an eventual acceptance or rejection." The
Early Decision admission process is described in some detail as a 2 step
process.
Initially, the support staff consolidates "the critical academic and
extracurricular information about each prospective student onto a
two-sided, thick, canary-yellow form. And from that small card, the
process continues." The front of the card "lists all the necessary
biographical and academic information - name, address, classes taken,
unweighted GPA recalculated by the office and SAT and AP test scores,
among other things." On the back of the card, "admission deans remark on
and evaluate the less rigid elements of the application. At the top of
the page, one box lists extracurricular activities, another notes legacy
status. Further down, each of the four essay questions has a line for
deans' reactions. There is also a space at the bottom reserved for
readers to jot down their general impressions of the candidate."
According to Soichet, "The actual application reading process resembles
a relay race, as each applicant's folder is passed to subsequent readers
like a baton. One of the four associate deans leads off the process by
skimming the application to assign the student two numerical grades.
Using a rating scale ranging from one to five - one representing the
best - the associate dean evaluates the applicant for both academic and
non-academic achievement. A junior officer, another associate dean and
the dean of admission run subsequent legs of the race, reading the
applications and jotting down impressions on the yellow card."
At the time of the article, the Acting Dean of Admission estimated that
the three readers combined spent "about one hour reading and evaluating
each 12-page application." With about 1,850 early decision candidates
in Fall 2000, Princeton's 13 admission officers spent approximately
2,000 hours preparing the "yellow cards."
The Princeton Admissions decision process "occurs entirely on paper,
with associate deans voicing their opinions in a few paragraphs of
writing ..." The Dean of Admission then uses the "yellow cards" to make
the final decision. The article notes the Acting Dean of Admission
Steven LeMenager believes that having one person responsible for all the
decisions "provides a degree of accountability in the admission
process".
One finds similar yet different processes at other highly selective
colleges. At Harvard, decisions about each applicant are made by a
majority vote of admission officers. The Harvard Dean of Admissions
noted in an interview "No one person makes any decision . . . ever."
At Dartmouth, according a 1995 article by Allison Brugg in The Dartmouth
Online, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg said "each
application is read at least three times. The first time, someone from
the Admissions Office reads and comments on the applicant. Then the
application is read again. The second reader makes his or her own
comments, having never seen what the first reader wrote. Both the
comment sheets and the application itself are then read by Furstenberg,
who either makes a decision or passes the application on to a
committee."
The website HowStuffWorks.COM, describes a somewhat different process
based on an interview with Duke University director of undergraduate
admissions Christoph Guttentag. At Duke, once the applications are
complete, each "complete application is then evaluated by one of 15 to
20 'first readers' -- temporary professional staff (former admissions
officers, faculty spouses, alumni, graduate students). These
applications are randomly distributed. Applications then receive a
second full evaluation by the staff member responsible for the region of
the country in which the applicant lives. So each application is
evaluated at least twice. The strongest 5 percent to 7 percent of the
pool (as defined by all parts of the application, not just the academic
and quantifiable parts) then comes directly to the director of
undergraduate admissions -- Guttentag -- for review. Most of the time,
if both the first and second readers recommend an admit, the student
will be admitted. But not always. Guttentag reserves the right to have a
student discussed in selection committee."
The weakest 25% to 33% of the applicant pool go to an associate director
for review. If both readers "recommend a 'deny' then the associate
director can 'sign off' on a deny." All other applicants to Duke are
"reviewed by a selection committee where at least three staff members
and the chairperson -- either the director of admissions or the senior
associate director -- discuss the case."
Guttentag is quoted "So we literally sit around a table and talk about
-- often in great detail -- all students in the large middle of the
pool, and anyone, regardless of qualifications, who an admissions
officer thinks ought to be discussed." The committee asks questions like
"How much impact has a student had in their school or community? What
sort of impact do we think they'll have at Duke?" The goal of the
process is "to create a class that is talented and interesting, where
the students are inclined to take advantage of what Duke has to offer,
and where they will learn from each other."
Finally, at Duke once decisions are made on all applicants, Guttentag
reviews "the group as a whole and sees if any decisions should be
changed." Then decision letters are printed, reviewed for accuracy,
stuffed and sent to applicants. The process is complete.
In general, in the highly selective college admissions processes a
manual, labor intensive, subjective decision process is used.
Data-driven and communications-driven DSS are not used. Criteria often
seem vague and hard to measure. In some processes one individual has
primary decision authority and others a group shares authority and
responsibility.
We can create institutional DSS to assist in recurring, semi-structured
decision processes like the College Admissions decision process. BUT we
have to ask: Will using a DSS result in better outcomes? will decisions
be fairer? or more systematic? What, if any thing, should be automated?
When should DSS be developed and used in this type of decision process?
References
Brugg, Allison, "Furstenberg discusses the admission process," The
Dartmouth Online, Thursday, October 12, 1995 at URL
http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=199510120104.
Hammer, M. and Champy, J. (1993). Reengineering the Corporation. New
York: Harper Collins.
"How College Admission Works," HowStuffWorks.COM, at URL
http://www.howstuffworks.com/college-admission.htm.
Soichet, Emma, "Admitting the process: Princeton's admission officers
dispel the mystery of what goes on behind the closed doors of West
College," The Daily Princetonian, Monday, December 11, 2000, at URL
www.dailyprincetonian.com/Content/2000/12/11/news/794.shtml.
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Coming Soon from Quorum Books!
Decision Support Systems: Concepts and Resources for Managers
by Daniel J. Power
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What's New at DSSResources.COM
03/30/2002 Posted Detailed Table of Contents for the DSS Hyperbook.
03/30/2002 Posted Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 in HTML format of the DSS
Hyperbook in the Subscriber Zone.
03/29/2002 Posted Chapter 10 in HTML format of the DSS Hyperbook in the
Subscriber Zone.
03/28/2002 Posted Chapter 9 in HTML format of the DSS Hyperbook in the
Subscriber Zone.
03/26/2002 Posted DSS Design and Development Questionnaire. Check on the
For Researchers page.
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DSS News Stories - March 18 to 30, 2002
03/30/2002 Japanese groupware company announces FreeBSD option and
addition of European Time/Date format for collaborative software suite.
03/28/2002 Study cites Privacy Leadership Initiative's role in shaping
online privacy practices.
03/25/2002 The OLAP Survey ranks Applix #1 in fast rollouts,
performance, customer loyalty and ease of use.
03/25/2002 Advanced Reality boosts enterprise productivity by embedding
real-time collaboration in Microsoft Excel.
03/22/2002 Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs scientists set new fiber optic
transmission record.
03/21/2002 The University of Miami uses MicroStrategy for admissions and
enrollment decisions.
03/20/2002 EMC announced availability of Widesky Developers Suite,
expansion of developers program.
03/19/2002 InfoImage released fifth generation of its enterprise portal
software.
03/18/2002 Hummingbird and STG, Inc. to present network-based electronic
records management at FOSE 2002.
03/18/2002 SilverStream Software announced availability of J2EE 1.3
compatible SilverStream eXtend™ Workbench 2.0.
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