Abstract
Forward planning and system design can be improved through the participation of the people who will eventually use the system, if they can be provided with the necessary skills. The authors have developed and tested a framework for participative forward planning and aystem design which includes a set of analytic and design procedures:
1 Variance analysis, for identifying operational deficiencies
2 Job satisfaction analysis, for measuring the lack of fit between employees' actual and preferred work situations
3 Future analysis, to identify significant opportunities and development goals
4 The BASYC approach to multi-attribute utility analysis, to compare the desirability of alternative courses of action (possibly using "fuzzy logic")
5 Socio-technical systems design, to bring human and technical factors to bear simultaneously on system improvements.
(Most of this paper is based on an article commissioned from us by the UNESCO journal "Impact of science on society" for its issue (Vol.28, No.3, July-September 1978), which is devoted to the theme "Computers and social options". Permission of UNESCO to use this material here is gratefully acknowledged.)
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Hawgood, J., Land, F., Mumford, E. (1978). A participative approach to forward planning and system change. In: Bracchi, G., Lockemann, P.C. (eds) Information Systems Methodology. ECI 1978. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 65. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-08934-9_72
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