Course Description

The objective of the course is to integrate developments in the literature on decision processes, modeling technologies, and information technologies and discuss their application in the organizational context. This will be accomplished through the use of cases drawn from the literature, and with materials drawn from my ongoing decision support development projects with organizational partners such as Grant Thornton Inc. and the US Army. A more detailed list of topics that will be covered is given below.

• The decision processes component will cover process models, bounded rationality and its implication for satisficing vs. optimizing behavior, and discuss heuristics commonly used by humans and the systematic types of errors that are a consequence of using these heuristics.

• The modeling technologies component will discuss decision analysis techniques such as decision trees, influence diagrams, multi-criteria decision making and mathematical programming.

• The information technologies component will give students the opportunity to work with specialized desktop decision support tools such DPL (decision programming language, a tool used to create decision tree and influence diagram-based DSS) and Expert Choice (an analytic heirarchy process-based DSS engine). In addition, we will discuss the use of client server technology as an enabler for implementing enterprise wide access to decision support systems. Examples drawn from LAN-based Client server (best epitomized by Oracle 7 server with a windows client such as Excel or Access) and Web-based client server applications will be used illustratively.

The prerequisite for graduate students who want to take the course is a course on database systems (e.g., 90-746). It would be ideal if you have also had some prior exposure to management science techniques. Undergraduates are required to additionally have a 3.25 GPA (on a scale of 4).