Decision support tools enable improved decision-making for challenging decision problems by empowering stakeholders to process, analyze, visualize, and otherwise make sense of a variety of key factors. Their intentional design is a critical component of the value they create. All decision-support tools share in common that there is a complex decision problem to be solved for which decision-support is useful, and moreover, that appropriate analytics expertise is available to produce solutions to the problem setting at hand. When well-designed, decision support tools reduce friction and increase efficiency in providing support for the decision-making process, thereby improving the ability of decision-makers to make quality decisions. On the other hand, the presence of overwhelming, superfluous, insufficient, or ill-fitting information and software features can have an adverse effect on the decision-making process and, consequently, outcomes. We advocate for an innovative, and perhaps overlooked, approach to designing effective decision support tools: genuinely listening to the project stakeholders, to ascertain and appreciate their real needs and perspectives. By prioritizing stakeholder needs, a foundation of mutual trust and understanding is established with the design team. We maintain this trust is critical to eventual tool acceptance and adoption, and its absence jeopardizes the future use of the tool, which would leave its analytical insights for naught. We discuss examples across multiple contexts to underscore our collective experience, highlight lessons learned, and present recommended practices to improve the design and eventual adoption of decision dupport tools.
翻译:决策支持工具通过赋予利益攸关方处理、分析、视觉化和其他各种关键因素的能力,使应对挑战决策问题的决策更加完善,使利益攸关方能够处理、分析、直观化或以其他方式理解各种关键因素。它们有意设计是它们创造的价值的一个关键组成部分。所有决策支持工具的共同点是,有一个复杂的决策问题需要解决,对此决策支持是有用的,此外,有适当的分析专门知识来提出解决手头问题的办法。如果设计得当,决策支持工具能够减少摩擦,提高支持决策进程的效率,从而提高决策者做出高质量决定的能力。另一方面,它们有意设计是它们创造的价值的一个关键组成部分。所有决策支持工具的共同点是,这是一个复杂的决策问题,需要解决,决策支持是有用的,此外,所有决策支持工具都具备大量、多余、不足或不适当的信息和软件功能。 我们主张采用创新、也许被忽视的方法来设计有效的决策支持工具:真正听取项目利益攸关方的意见,确定和理解他们的实际需要和观点。通过优先考虑利益攸关方的需求,与设计团队一道建立相互信任和理解的基础。我们保持这一信任对于最终接受和采用工具至关重要,而缺乏这种信任对于最终接受和采纳工具至关重要,对决策进程进程及其缺乏可能损害今后设计工具的分析性做法,从而强调我们今后如何利用集体理解工具。