1	Design and Development of PlanningDSS.com Daniel J. Power University of Northern Iowa
2	Research Project in Progress Building website PlanningDSS.com Role-Oriented, Web-based Planning DSS Knowledge-driven, process-oriented Decision Support System Comprehensive, general purpose system Prototype built using open source web tools
3	Overview History Design concept User roles Current status
4	Project Objectives to develop a decision support system (DSS) for use in actual strategic decision situations in organizations; to develop an experiential instructional system that will help people improve their decision making and inference behavior in strategic decision situations to conduct research that may explain how individuals and groups make decisions and how decisions should be made.
5	Design History: Prior Decision Aiding Systems 1975-1984 DECision AID Hewlett-Packard 2000 Access system and then the Apple II 1986-87 Decision Assistant Mid-1990s Visual Basic 2004 DA3000 Spring 2005 PlanningDSS.com -- project team of University of Northern Iowa MIS majors
6	Current Targeted Situations Contingency course of action (COA) planning decisions Emergency Management Military Planning Crisis Action Planning Selection decisions
7	Design Concept Flow, organization, use and transformation of text descriptions, ratings, values and preferences Define a network of ideas and assessments/predictions Five user roles: 1) Planner; 2) Analyst; 3) Observer; 4) Decision Maker; and 5) Administrator 16 tables in MySQL data base Implemented using PHP and JavaScript
8	Planner Role Creates new planning topics Enters one or more Decision Questions Enters Alternatives Courses of action associated with a Decision Question Each Planning topic requires a Decision Question with at least two Alternatives Specifies Criteria or factors to evaluate and score each Alternative Specifies the users that will rate the alternatives (analysts) and the decision maker
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10	Analyst Role Role can and should be assumed by multiple people knowledgeable about the focal organization and its current and future situation and the Decision Question of interest Analysts compare Alternatives on Criteria
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12	Decision Maker Role "What-If Analysis" and "Pro-Con Analysis" tools Option to make a decision
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14	Observer Role Read-only view of the planning database Opportunity to comment upon and annotate information for a Topic
15	System Administrator Role Maintain the planning database and ensure its performance Designates Planners and maintains their basic user information. Users must maintain their own current background, photo and contact information. Can purge or archive branches in the database. Can give a Planner access to an existing database or have the Planner start with an empty database. Can monitor the use of PlanningDSS.com by any user. Web-based administration.
16	Conclusions Alpha testing Editing user interface for consistency Add functionality – checklists, brainstorming Criteria database Training planners