Understanding and profiling user requirements to support the conceptual design of an integrated land monitoring system

Acquiring and organizing knowledge and information elements can be essential not only to understand, but also to eliminate, reduce and control complexity and uncertainty. An integration of tools from different disciplines could systematically help in the construction of an agreed framework for problem formulation, above all when the situation is "new". An application was de-veloped in relation to an industrial project, in order to propose profiles of the potential users of an innovative system and of their requirements, and to for-mally develop models that can orient analysis, decision and action. Some ele-ments and results of this integrated application of "soft" and "hard" decision aid tools are here proposed as steps of an organizational learning cycle, which is a basic element of each innovation proces

Moving beyond value conflicts : systemic problem structuring in action

Value conflicts can become entrenched in a destructive pattern of mutual stigmatization, which inhibits the emergence of new understandings of the situation and actions for improvement. In extreme cases, such patterns can even lead to violence. This paper offers a new systems theory of value conflict, which suggests the possibility of three different strategies for intervention using problem structuring methods: supporting people in transcending overly narrow value judgements about what is important to them; seeking to widen people’s boundaries of the issues that they consider relevant; and attempting to challenge stereotyping and stigmatization by building better mutual understanding. Each of these three strategies is illustrated with practical examples from operational research projects on natural resource management in New Zealand

Moving beyond value conflicts : systemic problem structuring in action

Abstract: Value conflicts can become entrenched in a destructive pattern of mutual stigmatization, which inhibits the emergence of new understandings of the situation and actions for improvement. In extreme cases, such patterns can even lead to violence. This paper offers a new systems theory of value conflict, which suggests the possibility of three different strategies for intervention using problem structuring methods: supporting people in transcending overly narrow value judgements about what is important to them; seeking to widen people’s boundaries of the issues that they consider relevant; and attempting to challenge stereotyping and stigmatization by building better mutual understanding. Each of these three strategies is illustrated with practical examples from operational research projects on natural resource management in New Zealand

FACTORS INFLUENCING LONG TERM DYNAMICS OF HEALTH CARE SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Governments and other policy makers use long-term planning models to support workforce planning decisions for regulating care markets and to ensure accurate balancing between care supply and demand. Our aim is to understand long-term effects of workforce planning decisions on care markets, in order to enhance health care policy making. We identify 25 key factors that influence care demand and supply based on literature analysis and analysis of a planning model for long term care development currently used in the Netherlands. We depict a model that relates these key factors together, and, ultimately construct a system dynamics model to predict long-term development of specialist care supply and demand. We conclude that long-term developments of care markets are not only determined by these 25 factors but also by dynamic interactions among three markets: (1) the specialist care markets, (2) the personnel markets in hospitals and specialist groups, and (3) the specialist training markets. Planning models must include such interactions to ensure valid long-term predictions of markets and workforce needs

A system to integrate unstructured and semistructured information resources: an application in an innovation design process

A system that integrates different tools, from multicriteria analysis and mathematical programming but also cognitive and social psychology, can be proposed to cope with complexities and uncertainties that generate criticality in the socio technical approach. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potentialities of this system, above all in terms of information fusion and use in various contexts, and to propose an application in relation to an industrial project, in order to support the conceptual phase of the design processr

Understanding and profiling user requirements to support the conceptual design of an integrated land monitoring system

Acquiring and organizing knowledge and information elements can be essential not only to understand, but also to eliminate, reduce and control complexity and uncertainty. An integration of tools from different disciplines could systematically help in the construction of an agreed framework for problem formulation, above all when the situation is “new”. An application was de-veloped in relation to an industrial project, in order to propose profiles of the potential users of an innovative system and of their requirements, and to for-mally develop models that can orient analysis, decision and action. Some ele-ments and results of this integrated application of “soft” and “hard” decision aid tools are here proposed as steps of an organizational learning cycle, which is a basic element of each innovation process