Flexible Decision Making Platform

Challenge

The following issues often interfered with the decision-making process within “Centrul regional de formare continua pentru Administratia Publica locala” (CRFCAPL) Sibiu:

• decisional staff can hardly be gathered all at the same time
• lack of time – a decision-making meeting almost always turns into long discussions
• diverse proposals and debates often postpone important decisions

iGroupDecision had to resolve the following issues:

• efficient communication between the institution departments
• increase attendance percentage at different meetings
• improve communication between new or existing staff
• decrease the time needed for making decisions within meetings

iGroupDecision Tools

iGroupDecision supports the following meeting steps:

• Plan – custom interactive agenda creation with topics and subtopics
• Generate Ideas – brainstorming tool for fast idea generation (be it attributed or anonymous)
• Converge – categorizing tool for organizing and synthesizing ideas
• Prioritize – sophisticated voting tool for prioritizing, decision making and consensus building
• Document – report and export tools for documentation, communication and further collaboration

Technologies

iGroupDecision is made up of three components: a server, a client, and a collaborative platform.

• The iGroupDecision server is built on Java technology
• The iGroupDecision client is a Java web application – web browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, etc.), and communicating with the server via Web Services.
• SQL database – any of: Postgre, MySQL, SQL Server
• Integration: The server can be integrated with a collaborative platform – i.e. Lotus Notes with the Domino Server – for collaborative services i.e. – system users, email notification, calendar (user availability for a meeting)
• Workflow: system provide workflow engine based on jBPM
• J2EE : the entire solution is built using J2EE technology
• Environment: the system can run with any J2EE server

Benefits

• increased efficiency, due to the speed and quality of information processing and transmission
• improved quality; time, space, and geographical limitations-independence – removal of common communication barriers, systematically directing the pattern, timing, and content of discussion, and providing techniques for structuring decision analysis;
• avoidance of the conflict-provoking behaviors of positional bargaining;
• more objective evaluation: groups are better at catching errors than are the individuals who proposed ideas;
• synergy and social inclusion