A Study on Software Support for Issue Mapping in Group Discussions

Enterprises are facing complex problems, which often require the involvement of multiple stakeholders and experts. Due to diverse conceptions of the problem itself, It is hard to achieve a consistent understanding of the problem space and to define what actually needs to be solved. These issues are called "Wicked Problems". To meet the demand of supporting these complex challenges, there are several software tools, which try to influence a multiple stakeholders’ decision process.

In this thesis, those software tools for group decision support, as well as their underlying concept and possible benefits for the process of collaborative decision making, are analyzed. First, the focus of concern to do the analysis is the IBIS (Issue-Based Information System) framework, which is one of several approaches in literature to tackle wicked problems. IBIS catches complex thinking in structured analytic maps by providing a grammar, that establishes a formal structure on the generated maps. Issues are the most fundamental entities in this grammar. With the focus lying on issues and the continuing attempt to settle them, participants form and use their judgement constantly. Thus, IBIS-type systems help to educe a more structured picture of the problem and its solution.

Based on a literature review, a discussion about the usefulness of the IBIS framework and its differences to comparable frameworks is held.

After gaining broad knowledge about IBIS as a concrete method, this work researches the possibilities of decision support tools that implement issue mapping to advance the collaborative process of decision making. IBIS is used as the basic draft for the scrutinized tools. With respect to this purpose, different tools are examined and their impact on the act of decision making is monitored.

Research questions:

1. What is the state-of-the-art in software support for issue mapping?
2. What are commonalities/differences of IBIS tools?
3. Do IBIS tools provide inherent collaboration support? If so, how?

References:

Kunz, Werner & Rittel, Horst (1970): Issues as Elements of Information Systems.

Kirschner, Paul Arthur (2003): Visualizing Argumentation. Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-Making, p. 117-136.