The decision in your hands

Decision-making in managerial groups can require facilitation to provide an effective mechanism. In the past, the chief focus for facilitation has been skills training for decision group members, for example in sharing meetings. The application of information technology (IT) to group work provides a relatively new means of facilitation, particularly with regard to the provision of timely, relevant feedback to group members. In the system described here, this feedback is provided in the form of data and summaries representing attitudes, feelings or performance of group members. The role of the Operational Research OR analyst is as facillitator, controlling the IT function and providing reassurance on quantitative elements of feedback.