ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how management in the public services take decisions that have such a major impact, and attempts to isolate common factors that might be useful to others. There are two kinds of decisions involved, first the initial decision on whether or not to have a computer, involving decisions on applications to make it pay, premises and organization—and secondly subsequent decisions to extend the scope of the service to new applications. The chapter examines some of the techniques used by various organizations in the public service to decide what purposes computers are to serve. Once a computer installation is operational, many public bodies have seen the need for regular evaluation of the installation to monitor its operational efficiency and to measure the effectiveness of the applications. Three main aspects are important in these procedures: efficiency, success, and cost. Any selection or evaluation procedure is, then, a combination of three dimensions: level of approach, type of procedure and feasibility tests.
