Group decision support for public policy planning

Decision support often focuses on substantive rationality (what to choose). The procedural rationality (how to choose) of the process of long-term strategic decision making is then often neglected. In strategic decision making, supporting the decision process is more important than supporting the search for an ‘‘optimal’’ solution to the problem, especially since for most policy problems a well-defined objective function does not exist. Such a problem occurs in setting the energy policy for the Indonesian island of Java. Indonesia wants to introduce natural gas into the fuel mix. Ways to support this decision making process with the existing level of IT were analyzed. Because the government of a developing country has very small funds to invest, a specialized group decision support system (GDSS) was designed to allow for long-term support. Its restrictions are discussed here. # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.