ABSTRACT
This chapter provides normative analysis of the requirements of management information systems (MIS) for construction project management. It examines the requirements from viewpoints such as control, planning, scheduling, and decision making to establish a broad, general system, theoretic MIS design framework. The chapter reviews the advances in computer and electronic communications which could be implemented in an automated project MIS. It describes these concepts in a conceptualization of an advanced communication system. It appears that with difficult, unstructured problems, the rational model of decisionmaking collapses. The decision maker has to rely on hunches, experience, creativity, intuition and judgment. For interorganizational MIS purposes, practical economies will predict that only those participants with high density of information exchange will be included in future generations of MIS. The structural differences and changes between and within organizations during the lifetime of a project create significant communication barriers.
