Mobile Services for Group Decision Support

In this paper we study a new role for smart mobile devices: their potential assistance in group-based decision making. Assuming that smart devices implement wireless short range scanning technology, they have the capacity to scan other devices and by doing so, group members can exchange information and decision preferences with other group members. We introduce four mobile services that exploit this technology for the purpose of group decision making: information gathering, information matching, preference gathering, and preference matching. The paper continues by outlining to what extent these services will have value for specific types of group tasks. We conclude that information gathering and matching are appropriate for simple tasks and problem tasks, and preference gathering and matching are appropriate for judgement tasks and “fuzzy” tasks.