A model for collaborative expert representation of an organizationally constrained information systems planning problem within a management science framework

Availability of an expert can enhance the practical utility of management science decision models for planning. Experts more appropriately represent problems for the models than non-experts. If one also incorporates external planning guidance into problem representations, the decisions produced will adhere to that guidance without significantly restricting planners' prerogatives. As a typical management science model, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used in this research as the decision model for which an Army hospital information systems planning problem must be represented. A significant amount of external planning guidance must be incorporated into the plan at the local level for the plan to be approved by the Army Health Services Command (HSC). I have modeled the collective knowledge and the collaborative problem solving process employed by a model expert and a domain expert to represent a particular hospital's information system planning problem as AHP hierarchies that incorporate Command guidance. This model could be implemented as an expert system capable of producing hierarchies that could be used by Army hospital managers with the AHP to prioritize and select information systems planning initiatives for their hospitals. This research contributes a new and useful model of collaborative expertise that can represent organizationally constrained planning problems for use in decision models.