The role of prototyping in executive decision systems

Abstract Prototyping has been widely acclaimed as an effective approach to requirements definition and systems development. It is often claimed to be particularly useful in the development of systems to support executive decision making, which by definition deal with unstructured business problems. Data from 109 top executives and 34 MIS managers from 40 organizations are used to identify executives' problems with information systems and the alternative and complimentary solutions to these problems. Prototyping is rated quite highly by MIS managers as a solution to many executive problems. The benefits of prototyping suggested in the literature are clearly borne out by the study.

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