A participative approach to forward planning and system change

Abstract

Forward planning and system design can be improved through the participation of the people who will eventually use the system, if they can be provided with the necessary skills. The authors have developed and tested a framework for participative forward planning and aystem design which includes a set of analytic and design procedures: 1 Variance analysis, for identifying operational deficiencies 2 Job satisfaction analysis, for measuring the lack of fit between employees' actual and preferred work situations 3 Future analysis, to identify significant opportunities and development goals 4 The BASYC approach to multi-attribute utility analysis, to compare the desirability of alternative courses of action (possibly using “fuzzy logic”) 5 Socio-technical systems design, to bring human and technical factors to bear simultaneously on system improvements.