Use of a group support system to evaluate management information system effectiveness
Abstract Group support systems (GSSs) have been used by organizations to perform a variety of tasks, including planning goals, editing group documents, resolving group conflicts, generating ideas about business problems, and voting on issues, but rarely have they been used for the development or evaluation of a management information system. Yet, a significant synergy may be achieved by integrating traditional system development and evaluation techniques with GSSs. Although a GSS may be used productively throughout the development life cycle, this article focuses solely on the last phase by showing how a GSS can be used for evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of computer systems. A case study involving the evaluation of two information systems with a GSS shows that participants were significantly more satisfied with the GSS than a verbal meeting. Although fewer comments were generated in the GSS session, more high-quality comments were generated.