Abstract for: Is Group Model Building worthwhile? Considering the effectiveness of GMB

Many field studies are available that describe successful applications of model-driven group decision support methodologies. However, these studies might suffer from a potential bias of contextual factors. Recently, there has been a call for a more rigorous testing of the effectiveness of model-driven methodologies. The purpose of our research is to determine the effectiveness of a particular model-driven approach, Group Model Building (GMB), on decision-making in a controlled research situation. In this paper, we first clarify 'effectiveness' as a construct. Then, we describe the present study. We compared groups supported by GMB (13 groups) and not being supported (13 groups) on perceptions of the quality of decision-making and on the quality of their decisions. Preliminary results show that there are no winners. However, some differences in the perceptions of the members of decision-making groups call for further testing in the future.