ASHOK KUMAR

MBA

EVENING [DIVISION-A]

ROLL NO. 01021303915

SUBJECT-

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND APPLICATIONS

ASSIGNMENT-1
Q.1 What are the techniques of group Decision making? How do group Decision support system
improved group decision making?
Ans:- 4 Techniques for Group Decision Making Process More Effective
Some of the techniques employed to make the group decision making process more effective and
decision making more efficient in which creativity is encouraged, are as follows:

i. Brainstorming:
This technique involves a group of people, usually between five and ten, sitting around a table, generating
ideas in the form of free association. The primary focus is on generation of ideas rather them on
evaluation of ideas.

If a large number of ideas can be generated, then it is likely that there will be a unique and creative idea
among them. All these ideas are written on the black board with a piece of chalk so that everybody can
see every idea and try to improve upon such ideas.

Brainstorming technique is very effective when the problem is comparatively specific and can be simply
defined. A complex problem can be broken up into parts and each part can be taken separately at a time.

ii. Nominal Group Technique (NGT):

Nominal group technique is similar to brainstorming except that the approach is more structured.
Members form the group in name only and operate independently, generating ideas for solving the
problem on their own, in silence and in writing. Members do not interact with each other so that strong
personality domination is avoided. It encourages individual creativity.

The group coordinator either collects these written ideas or writes then on a large black board for
everyone to see or he asks each member to speak out and then he writes it on the black board as he
receives it.

These ideas are then discussed one by one in turn and each participant is encouraged to comment on
these ideas for the purpose of clarification and improvement. After all ideas are discussed, they are
evaluated for their merits and drawbacks and each participating member is required to vote on each idea
and assign it a rank on the basis of priority of each alternative solution. The idea with the highest
aggregate ranking is selected as the final solution to the problem.

iii. Delphi Technique:

This technique is the modification of the nominal group technique, except that it involves obtaining the
opinions of experts physically separated from each other and unknown to each other. This insulates
group members from the undue influence of others. Generally, the types of problems handled by this
technique are not specific in nature or related to a particular situation at a given time. For example, the
technique could be used to understand the problems that could be created in the event of a war. The
steps in the Delphi technique are:

1. The problem is identified and a sample of experts is selected. These experts are asked to provide
potential solutions through a series of carefully designed questionnaires.

2. Each expert completes and returns the initial questionnaire.

3. The results of the questionnaire are compiled at a central location and the central coordinator prepares
a second questionnaire based on the previous answers.

4. Each member receives a copy of the results along with the second questionnaire.
5. Members are asked to review the results and respond to the second questionnaire. The results
typically trigger new solutions or cause changes in the original position.

6. The process is repeated until a consensus is reached.

The process is very time consuming and is primarily useful in illuminating broad range, long term complex
issues such as future effects of energy shortages that might occur.

iv. Didactic interaction:

This technique is applicable only in certain situations, but is an excellent method when such a situation
exists. The type of problem should be such that it results in a yes-no solution. For example, the decision
may be to buy or not to buy, to merge or not to merge, to expand or not to expand and so on. Such a
decision requires an extensive and exhaustive discussion and investigation since a wrong decision can
have serious consequences.

Since, in such a situation, there must be advantages as well as disadvantages of either of the two
alternatives, the group required to make the decision is split into two sub-groups, one favouring the go
decision and the other favouring the no go decision.

The first group lists all the pros of the problem solution and the second group lists all the cons. These
groups meet and discuss their findings and their reasons. After the exhaustive discussions, the groups
switch sides and try to find weaknesses in their own original viewpoints. This interchange of ideas and
understanding of opposing viewpoints results in mutual acceptance of the facts as they exist so that a
solution can be built around these facts and opinions relating to these facts and thus a final decision is
reached.

Processes

General process steps of group decision support systems are group brainstorming, classification,
prioritization, planning, assessment, documentation, and resolution. The process always involves a
facilitator who designs the work space and guides the team. GDSS enhance group decision making
through this general process and can then be customized to serve clients in ways that are unique to their
businesses. For example, in 1989 Group Systems, the first company to offer GDSS software, developed
a product based on the research of Dr. Jay Nunamaker. The developed software was tailored to specific
needs of IBM and the U.S. Navy, in both cases giving a tangible structure for collaboration and enhancing
group communication, which resolved issues related to peer dynamics and information flow.

Developments

Electronic GDSS has developed significantly since the 1980s, helping organizations like NASA, Intel, IBM
and P&G to build better company communication networks and make decisions that enhance company
services and growth. Advances in electronic infrastructure, processing, meeting space, and
communication are just a few examples of how GDSS can improve organizational decision-making
processes.

Considerations

Small businesses that are growing rapidly can benefit materially by using electronic GDSS technology. As
a firm grows quickly and more employees are hired, a shift takes place in the organizational dynamics of
the company and peer communication. Many new employees need access to information and to others
within the company to make decisions related to their work. Implementing GDSS is important, as they can
effectively rapidly facilitate communication among members of a growing group in a systematic,
controllable and efficient manner.
Q.2 what do you mean by expert system? What are the advantages and disadvantages of expert
system?
Ans:- Well the exam I have to sit tomorrow made me to post this, as I gathered these information after
studying alot of slides and website, I thought it would be nice to publish a clean summary of information
here, these may help you in your studying if by any chance you have to pass such module in future.
What is an Expert System?

An Expert System is a computer program coded to simulate knowledge and behavior of an individual or
an organization which is expert in some particular field, usually all expert systems contain a knowledge
base which is accessible by a set of rules depending on specific situations. Among the number of expert
systems the best examples of they can be named as Chess Game or the medical diagnosis expert
systems.

Advantages:

The goal of knowledge-based systems is to make the critical information required for the system to work
explicit rather than implicit.[32] In a traditional computer program the logic is embedded in code that can
typically only be reviewed by an IT specialist. With an expert system the goal was to specify the rules in a
format that was intuitive and easily understood, reviewed, and even edited by domain experts rather than
IT experts. The benefits of this explicit knowledge representation were rapid development and ease of
maintenance.

Ease of maintenance is the most obvious benefit. This was achieved in two ways. First, by removing the
need to write conventional code, many of the normal problems that can be caused by even small changes
to a system could be avoided with expert systems. Essentially, the logical flow of the program (at least at
the highest level) was simply a given for the system, simply invoke the inference engine. This also was a
reason for the second benefit: rapid prototyping. With an expert system shell it was possible to enter a few
rules and have a prototype developed in days rather than the months or year typically asociated with
complex IT projects.

A claim for expert system shells that was often made was that they removed the need for trained
programmers and that experts could develop systems themselves. In reality, this was seldom if ever true.
While the rules for an expert system were more comprehensible than typical computer code, they still had
a formal syntax where a misplaced comma or other character could cause havoc as with any other
computer language. Also, as expert systems moved from prototypes in the lab to deployment in the
business world, issues of integration and maintenance became far more critical. Inevitably demands to
integrate with, and take advantage of, large legacy databases and systems arose. To accomplish this,
integration required the same skills as any other type of system

Disadvantages

The most common disadvantage cited for expert systems in the academic literature is the knowledge
acquisition problem. Obtaining the time of domain experts for any software application is always difficult,
but for expert systems it was especially difficult because the experts were by definition highly valued and
in constant demand by the organization. As a result of this problem, a great deal of research in the later
years of expert systems was focused on tools for knowledge acquisition, to help automate the process of
designing, debugging, and maintaining rules defined by experts. However, when looking at the life-cycle
of expert systems in actual use, other problems essentially the same problems as those of any other
large system seem at least as critical as knowledge acquisition: integration, access to large databases,
and performance.[34][35]

Performance was especially problematic because early expert systems were built using tools such as
Lisp, which executed interpreted (rather than compiled) code. Interpreting provided an extremely powerful
development environment but with the drawback that it was virtually impossible to match the efficiency of
the fastest compiled languages, such as C. System and database integration were difficult for early expert
systems because the tools were mostly in languages and platforms that were neither familiar to nor
welcome in most corporate IT environments programming languages such as Lisp and Prolog, and
hardware platforms such as Lisp machines and personal computers. As a result, much effort in the later
stages of expert system tool development was focused on integrating with legacy environments such
as COBOL and large database systems, and on porting to more standard platforms. These issues were
resolved mainly by the client-server paradigm shift, as PCs were gradually accepted in the IT environment
as a legitimate platform for serious business system development and as affordable minicomputer servers
provided the processing power needed for AI applications.

Q3 Difference between OLAP and OLTP??

Ans:- OLTP (On-line Transaction Processing) is characterized by a large number of short on-line
transactions (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE). The main emphasis for OLTP systems is put on very fast
query processing, maintaining data integrity in multi-access environments and an effectiveness measured
by number of transactions per second. In OLTP database there is detailed and current data, and schema
used to store transactional databases is the entity model (usually 3NF)

- OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing) is characterized by relatively low volume of transactions. Queries
are often very complex and involve aggregations. For OLAP systems a response time is an effectiveness
measure. OLAP applications are widely used by Data Mining techniques. In OLAP database there is
aggregated, historical data, stored in multi-dimensional schemas (usually star schema).

The following table summarizes the major differences between OLTP and OLAP system design

OLTP System - Online Transaction Processing (Operational System)

OLAP System - Online Analytical Processing (Data Warehouse)

Source of data

OLTP: Operational data; OLTPs are the original source of the data.

OLAP: Consolidation data; OLAP data comes from the various OLTP Databases

Purpose of data

OLTP: To control and run fundamental business tasks

OLAP: To help with planning, problem solving, and decision support

What the data

OLTP: Reveals a snapshot of ongoing business processes

OLAP: Multi-dimensional views of various kinds of business activities

Inserts and Updates

OLTP: Short and fast inserts and updates initiated by end users

OLAP: Periodic long-running batch jobs refresh the data

Queries
OLTP: Relatively standardized and simple queries Returning relatively few records

OLAP: Often complex queries involving aggregations

Processing Speed

OLTP: Typically very fast

OLAP: Depends on the amount of data involved; batch data refreshes and complex queries may take
many hours; query speed can be improved by creating indexes

Space Requirements

OLTP: Can be relatively small if historical data is archived

OLAP: Larger due to the existence of aggregation structures and history data; requires more indexes than
OLTP

DatabaseDesign
OLTP: Highly normalized with many tables

OLAP: Typically de-normalized with fewer tables; use of star and/or snowflake schemas

Backup and Recovery

OLTP: Backup religiously; operational data is critical to run the business, data loss is likely to entail
significant monetary loss and legal liability

OLAP: Instead of regular backups, some environments may consider simply reloading the OLTP data as
a recovery methodsource: