Four goals for the design of organizational information support systems

The authors identify important variations in the nature of organizational work groups. They argue that the diversity of groups and tasks in most organizations requires a multifaceted approach to the design of information systems. This idea is embodied in the concept of an information systems toolkit. Such a toolkit would contain multiple technologies that, together, would meet the complex array of communication and problem-solving requirements generated by the diversity of groups and tasks described here. The authors recommend four goals for designers to use in creating the contents of such a toolkit. They are: applicability to diverse problems; capacity for coordination and feedback; access to approximate experiences; and communication with multiple organizational constituencies.