A work system view of DSS in its fourth decade

DSS was once a revolutionary idea, but in the intervening decades the original issues that led to the DSS movement have receded to ancient history. Declaring victory on the initial DSS agenda raises questions about whether DSS today is anything other than an umbrella term for disparate types of systems whose main commonality involves overlapping interests of researchers rather than substantive characteristics of the systems themselves, i.e., a reason for meeting at conferences but not a basis for “scientific inquiry.” This paper summarizes the author’s journey from enthusiasm to disillusionment to abandonment of DSS. It then starts over by asking what if the main topic were “decision support” rather than DSS. It shows how decision support might come from many sources in addition to technical artifacts such as DSS. It uses a loan processing example involving two banks to explore how work system concepts might be used to understand decision support in real world settings. Its conclusion is that a broad interpretation of decision support might provide a basis for progress related to both practice and research.