Group decision support systems (GDSS): present and future

Experience with an automated system of support (PLEXSYS), to make meetings more productive through improved communication, decision making, consensus building, negotiation and deliberation, is discussed. Observations, case studies, and experiments indicate that there is high potential for improving the performance of group meetings. Six group work systems are briefly described. Findings are discussed in terms of anonymity of participation, facility design, need for multiple public screens, organizational memory, communications network speed, methodological approach, software design, mixing of manual and electronic sessions, group size and composition, and satisfaction of the users.