Group Decision Support System for System Design

Our purpose in this article is to combine three previously published papers in order to apply a general Methodological frame to a specific problem. Because system design is a special case of problem solving, we will try to apply A Generalized Group Decision Support System (GDSS) for Group Problem Solving: (Callaos, et.al. 1999; Callaos and Lesso, 1999) to the specific area of System Design. This will be done by means of: 1) describing a GDSS for Group Decision Making, based on the Mathematical Solution to the Voter Paradox, 2) analyzing the concept of design, and making explicit its relations to: 2.1) intention, action, decision (Callaos and Callaos, 1995), and 2.2) to discovery (Evans, 2000), and group creativity (synectics). The GDSS for Group Problem Solving proposed here has two basic sub-systems: one would support the group creativity process, required for the generation of alternative designs, and the other would support: a) the group reasoning process, required to establish the pros and cons of each design alternative and b) the group decision process, based on the Ordinal Scales Delphi Method made possible by the Generalized Absolute Majority Rule, and/or the optimal hamiltonian path, both included in the Solution of the Voter Paradox. The ideas presented in the third part of this paper emerged while Richard Evans, one of the co-authors of this paper, worked with IBM and NASA over the past four years. The other two parts are suggested as complement to the third part, and as a way to make operative the basic ideas through the software developed according the first part of this paper.