Many decision support tools have been developed over the last 20 years and, in general, they support what Simon termed substantive rationality. However, such tools are rarely suited to helping people tackle wicked problems, for which a form of procedural rationality is better suited. Procedurally rational approaches have appeared in both management science and computer science, examples being the soft OR approach of cognitive mapping and the design rationale based on IBIS. These approaches are reviewed and the development of Wisdom, a procedurally rational decision support process and accompanying tool, is discussed and evaluated.
This paper reports on the development of a process and software tool to support the elicitation and negotiation of requirements for complex systems with multiple stakeholders and dynamic uncertainties. The process and tool have been used by a defence organisation for developing requirements for new underwater battlespace technologies and by a UK Government department for the early stages of an in-house information system development. This paper reports on work from the EPSRC funded Wisdom project and has an industrial co-author. RAE_import_type : Journal article RAE_uoa_type : Computer Science and Informatics
