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state of affairs and an applied reference criteria
R
1
providing some evidence for the necessity of
doing something about it (other than what has
been done) have been presented through the
CODSS. Possibly, actions to take, options and their
valuations may have been presented, all through
adequate forms. Then, other people can contribute
enlarging the first presentation of the issue. After
some time the DM finds appropriate, determined
by time constraints or because no real enlarging
on any of the sets is observed, he takes a decision.
It is recognizable that the decision process, con-
ceived in this way, implies a flow along different
states. Therefore, it makes sense to require that a
CODSS provides states and transitions between
states to formalize the flow. Say that an issue has
been raised by a non-DM. It must be recognized
as being worth to enter the decision process. If
recognized it may also make sense to prioritize
it. States of
raised
,
recognized
,
prioritized
are
possible descriptions. When the decision is taken,
the issue enters the state of
decided
. Upon getting
confirmation that the decision worked it may be
said
closed
. Transitions between states should
be the responsibility of the DM in charge. Inher-
ently to her function, a DM can pose an issue in
the recognized or prioritized states from the start.
Surely, it also makes sense that a DM poses the
issue as
decided
if he took the decision alone or
without resorting to the CODSS.
Any potential benefit from conversation in
decision process comes with the cost of involving
more people in the process, which means that they
must spend time and energy to think or research
about their aspects and the contributions of others,
and to transmit to the system the results of their
thinking or research. Because of inherent costs,
DMs always face the problem of establishing a
trade-off in allocating resources to the decision
process. Stating an issue as decided (without
conversation) may be the best course of action
in many cases. The concept of CODSS presented
here targets enlarging behavioral possibilities of
people inside an organization, not restricting them.
polling and Voting Mechanisms
Supporting DMs through conversation, or any
other contributions, does not entail that the deci-
sion itself should be taken by other people than
the DM. If it happens that:
1. A DM consistently arrives to good decisions
in the sense that people in the organizational
domain perceive that decisions are beneficial
to them in the long term.
2. People in the organizational domain under-
stand that their contributions are necessary
for good decisions.
It becomes expectable that people contribute
without conditioning their contributions to these
being accepted or the decision being mandatorily
collective - that is being arrived at by some vot-
ing process.
However, the existence of polling or voting
mechanisms at each organizational domain level
in a CODSS is a must or a distinctive advantage at
least. On one hand, a DM may want to know the
result of a poll on some aspect of an issue or on the
whole issue - and eventually decide accordingly.
On the other hand, voting may be mandatory for
some decisions and it may be useful to have such
possibility in the CODSS.
the coMpound
decision process
If an organizational domain
Y
has organizational
sub-domains
X
1
,
X
2
, …,
X
n
, it is possible to have an
UDP at
Y
and at each
X
i
. The compound decision
process (CDP) of
Y
is the union and composition
of the UDPs at
Y
and at each
X
i
. The decision
processes are dependent and, often, strongly inter-
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