Coordinating Decision Making In Large Organizations
William P. Birmingham, Joseph G. D’Ambrosio, Tim Darr · 2000
We believe that separation of economic decisions from feasibility decisions is a necessity for achieving organizational goals in a timely manner. In this paper we describe an approach that coordinates both causal and economic decisions of an organization. Concurrency is enhanced as economic decisions can be made without causal information, and the results of these decisions can be used to guide the causal decision makers. The causal decision makers can proceed, for the most part, in parallel since economic interdependencies have been eliminated. The goal of any organizational structure is to enhance the abilities of its constituents for gainful activity. While organizational structures vary, the need for coordinating constituent decision making transcends any particular structure. We have been developing techniques to support decision making in large-scale organizations, particularly for the design of complex systems (e.g., automobiles). Our approach is based on separating decisions about design feasibility from