Risks of information acquisition and processing

I have briefly described the decision making process and decisional and information retrieval behavior. Now, in addition to information retrieval behavior, I will examine and research the way in which people can make mistakes when processing and interpreting information. It is important that business intelligence software solutions keeps track (and makes visible) of which data and attributes a manager has been monitoring (Borgman, 1994). An important variance between people at the operational level and senior managers at the strategic level is that the latter demands more different and non-routine information in order to make decisions. Thus, information is more difficult to interpret and to internalize.

Decision making

In order to be a successful “driver of the car”, the manager should make deliberate and accurate decisions. Such decisions should be undertaken when the organisation is not running properly in any way. The manager should “steer the wheel” and ask himself continually “Should I turn left now, or can I drive the car forward for a while and then turn to the left? “. These questions remind us that making no decision will also be a decision. To make proper decisions, managers ask for current and reliable management information.

Business Intelligence & Organizational structures

Structure follows business intelligence strategy. To accomplish goals, an organization needs a formal and informal structure. People perform their work within an organizational structure, “the total amount of ways how work is distributed in different tasks and the way how, after that coordination, between those tasks is realized” (Mintzberg, 1983).

Different types of organizations

Different organizational goals lead to different type of organizations. Not every organization sells products. Some organizations offer services and some do both. Products are physical goods or are at least physically perceivable. Services, such as cleaning, are less tangible and they represent an activity or process.

Production and production capability

Cybernetic or open social systems do have nine features in common (Nadler and Tushman, 1995). These are in the table below and are subdivided into production and production capability aspects.

Variations in the user interface of business intelligence systems

In the first series of blogs, I discuss and explore the ‘world of the manager’and the business intelligence systems they use to make proper decisions and I relate those aspects to (intelligent) user interface design. My primary goal is to determine if and how knowledge-based systems are useful for the partial or complete automatic generation of the user interface of reports and dashboards.

Where Business Intelligence meets Artificial Intelligence

In this feasibility study, the potential role that knowledge technology can play in the area of business intelligence solutions, organizations and senior management, intelligent human computer interaction, and their interaction has been researched. The main objective of this study has been to gain more insight into the world of the senior manager and the way he manages the organization in order to discover variations in the domain of discourse (e.g. the area of interest).