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Decision Scenarios Ensure Information Systems
Meet Business Needs

Robert Reck (Adapted from original submission to Computerworld, September 30, 1985)

Communication between builders of management information and the managers they intend to serve is usually good. Thus, the systems built for the managers are always successful in meeting the managers' real business needs for information. Right? Wrong.

Experience at many firms indicates a number of problems in this communications link and, subsequently, in the usefulness of the resulting system. These problems fall on both sides of the systems/managerial fence. Often, the manager abrogates the responsibility for building a meaningful system. The staff is supposed to be psychic in determining what the boss needs to know and providing it - no more and certainly no less.

However, overzealous information systems builders can drive business executives into a data-rich, information-poor situation, which is increasingly characteristic of many of today's businesses, by adding to the system data elements that may not be needed.

What can be done to improve the communication of management support needs and the delivery of the action-oriented systems a business can actually use?

Use Decision Scenarios

One answer, proven in many experiences, is the use of decision scenarios. A decision scenario, as its name suggests, is the description of a particular business problem for which appropriate decisions must be made.

The business problem for a scenario is chosen by the business area manager during an interview with the company's systems analyst builder. Then the analyst-builder outlines and refines the decision scenario, a hypothetical situation rooted in the manager's functional area and tied to the business that needs support.

The information that could help manage the particular business problem is postulated by both the manager and the analyst-builder, resulting in the development of management support systems that are effective and created with low risk.

A Dynamic Approach

This dynamic approach to management support systems development is in contrast to traditional, static approaches that develop a snapshot of the business situation merely through a functional specification. The decision scenario unfolds over a period of two weeks or months through careful, two-way communication between the developer and the "owner", or system user.

A decision scenario should not be confused with a critical success factor analysis or a prototype. A decision scenario is to be used as a link between the identified critical success factors and the actual prototype stage.

Recently, the decision scenario process was used at a major manufacturing company. The company determined that one of the major critical success factors requiring information support involved the timely purchase of raw materials. The vice-president of purchasing, identified as the owner of this critical business area, worked closely with the systems analyst-builder to create a hypothetical situation that would help identify what type of information systems were needed to manage this critical business area.

In their first meeting, the vice-president and the analyst-builder discussed the business of purchasing as it affected the manufacturing company. The vice-president of purchasing was highly skeptical that information technology could help him manage his responsibilities. He had always used manual techniques and maintained manual records in which he had a high degree of confidence. The analyst-builder assured him that the information and techniques he needed to manage his business would be developed independently of any technology considerations.

In the series of interviews that followed, they were able to construct the decision scenario by postulating a purchasing structure that included a listing of raw materials and their suppliers, projected inventory volumes, safety stocks for key customers, sales forecasts and actual volumes and costs.

Over the next few months, during each successive interview, more information was added to the scenario. Its complexity was steadily increased to reflect the full scale of anticipated or unanticipated problems in the business area by hypothesizing some information on paper charts using scales of unavoidable, acceptable and favorable.

Then, in a series of working sessions with the vice-president, the analyst-builder showed how obtaining and using the right information could help in purchasing raw materials on a timely basis.

Through simple, limited examples, the analyst-builder taught the vice-president to use both the information and the initial technology itself to improve the company inventory and stock control, safety stock management service for customers and evaluation of stock offerings by suppliers.

The vice-president never knew that the "system" the analyst-builder was showing him was just a shell. Like the kind of stage sets used in western movies, the required data is visible, but the supporting structure is initially nonexistent.

The technique allows both parties to experiment with data needs and uses before the project becomes too costly to alter. Usually during this stage in the process, the scenario changes often.

After five working sessions, the decision scenario was well defined and close to the real business situation at the manufacturing company. Prototyping began, and after using successive prototype versions of the system, the vice-president of purchasing's original skepticism was transformed into enthusiasm for both the project and technology use.

Through this dynamic process, the company now created a valuable low-risk, low-cost business tool that continues to be used and praised by senior management. When building a management information system, critical success factors and prototyping alone are not enough. As this manufacturing company discovered, the use of a decision scenario improves the communication of management support needs, thus facilitating the delivery of action-oriented systems.


Four Key Elements

To put decision scenarios to work in your company, keep in mind the four key elements followed by the manufacturing company in this example.

• Target your decision scenario on a critical area of the business after critical success factors have been determined.
  

• Construct your scenario around the business questions a manger poses. and the key assumptions a manager poses and the key assumptions to be tracked in each critical business situation.
  

• Develop decision scenarios without considering the available data or technology that will be required. Focus on information content, not technology and data availability.
  

• Show the manager what information is really needed to manage the business area.

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Archive Articles (below)

• Designing Executive Information Systems
• Executive Information Systems: An Overview of Development
• Implications of Transition From an Industrial Era to One of Information
• Critical Success Factors Techniques can Apply to Team Management, Too
• Decision Scenarios Ensure Information System Meets Business Needs
• Critical Success Factors : Helping IS Managers Pinpoint Information Needs
• Combining Quality and Reengineering for Operational Superiority
• Steering IS Committees Straight
• Internal Consultants and a Consultative Approach
• EIS Plays Critical Role in Reengineering
• Rapid Software Selection

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