Guideline for unstructured technology decision making - a case study

Technology plays an important role in company competitiveness and, like any other sources of competition, needs to be managed from a strategic point of view. Therefore, technology is integral to how it is selected and prioritized to support the company strategic objective. The information characteristics for strategic decisions are ad hoc, forward looking, external and wide scoped. In addition, new technology is filled with uncertainties. Operations managers at lower levels make day-to-day decisions that are structured, information is easily available, inward looking and certain. However, from time to time the operations managers, who usually have to make structured decisions, have to make unstructured technology decisions or recommendations to senior management about the technology. If a decision-making process guideline is available to be utilized during technology rollout decisions, which are unstructured in nature, it will provide decision makers at operational management level with a structure and aid them to make decisions that are effective. This study made use of two cases studies within one organization to determine how previous technology decisions were made and what factors were taken into account. Based on the literature review and case study findings, a guideline for unstructured technology decision making was derived.