source:

Opinion: government must shift focus from authority over people to stewardship of complex systems | The Mandarin

Site Search

Home EDITORS’ PICKS

Opinion: government must shift focus from authority over people to stewardship of complex systems

By Thea SnowWednesday November 4, 2020

If someone were to ask you, “what is the role of government?”, what do you think you’d answer?

Perhaps it might sound something like this:

• Merriam-Webster Dictionary: the organisation, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and performs functions and which is usually classified according to the distribution of power within it; or
• Columbia Encyclopedia: a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society.

Or, it might not.

While the definitions above aptly describe the dominant understanding of the role of government, a growing group of academics and practitioners (including the Centre for Public Impact) are beginning to suggest that a different approach is needed. We are advocating for a shift away from viewing government as being about authority and control and towards seeing the core role of government as being to act as stewards of complex systems.

What does system stewardship mean? Through our work with a number of public sector agencies both here in Australia, and overseas, we have discovered that there is no single definition. Government as system steward is described in many different ways including: “guiding complex systems”; taking “a less transactional, more relational approach” to engaging with service delivery partners; and thinking beyond efficiency and effectiveness to “the common good”. A very recent paper describes it as, “a new way of working that allows governments and their agents to effectively influence and steward systems from which outcomes emerge.”

continues in source:

Opinion: government must shift focus from authority over people to stewardship of complex systems | The Mandarin

source:

CECAN Webinar: A Systems Approach to Environmental Policy in Defra

source:

CECAN Webinar: A Systems Approach to Environmental Policy in Defra

source:

Improving improvement | Q Community

Improving improvement

Co-designing a systems approach to managing complexity in Healthcare Improvement – building on the landmark report, Engineering Better Care, together we can develop the power to tame wicked problems.Download Idea as PDF  Print Idea Read comments 27 Project updates 2

• Winning idea
• 2019

• Q Exchange
• How it works
• Browse all ideas
• Your ideas
• Ideas you like
• Latest activity

Meet the team

• Peter DudgeonDirector PD TransformationsPD Transformations LTDEngland – Yorkshire and HumberProject Lead
• Emma AdamsGenerationQ Fellow, Senior Quality Improvement Advisor at Portsmouth Hospitals and Independent Quality Improvement ConsultantPortsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust/Oxidate Consulting Limited (Self employed)England – nationalEngland – WessexEngland – West
• John ClarksonDirector, Cambridge Engineering Design CentreDepartment of engineering, University of CambridgeEngland – East
• John DeanDeputy Medical Director (Transformation) Clinical Director for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Royal College of PhysiciansEast Lancashire Hospitals NHS TrustEngland – nationalEngland – Greater ManchesterNorthern IrelandScotlandWales
• James WardPrincipal Research AssociateUniversity of CambridgeEngland – East

What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to your chosen theme?

“The UK’s health and social care system is, appropriately, one of our most treasured national assets. However, the sheer size and complexity of the system, as well as the pressures it faces from an ageing population and finite resources, mean that making improvements to health and care can be a significant challenge. Successful transformation must take into account the needs of all patients, carers, healthcare professionals and other staff. It requires consistent consideration of every element of the system, the way each element interacts, and the implications of these interactions for the system as a whole – that is, it requires a ‘systems’ approach.” This comment from the foreword of Engineering Better Care echoes a number of key global reports and advocates the need to describe a systems approach to design and continuous improvement, to build on current practice and bring renewed focus onpeople, systems, designand riskas vital perspectives in the improvement of complex systems.

What does your project aim to achieve?

Engineering Better Care sought to co-design a systems approach to health and care design and continuous improvement by bringing together improvers, healthcare providers and systems engineers in a series of workshops to define a common language for improvement. The resulting approach, based on a series of simple questions, formed the basis of a landmark report from the Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal College of Physicians and the Academy of Medical Sciences. This project aims to take this work further, co-designing a systems approach toolkit with health and care improvers, based on a prototype developed by the University of Cambridge. The main objective is to create a toolkit, owned by the improvement community, that shares ideas and good practice in taking a systems approach to improvement. This will be achieved by building an active, self-sustaining forum for discussion, learning and sharing where success is measured by interaction with the toolkit and stories of its use.

How will the project be delivered?

The core team will run a series of face-to-face workshops, site visits, online debates and forums to encourage improvers to share experiences of improvement. Particular attention will be paid to the improvement frameworks and approaches used and their accompanying activities and tools, the choices made in their deployment and the top tips for achieving success or avoiding failure. Q members will be asked to describe new tools, add references to existing tools, provide rationale for their tool choices and examples of their use. Stories will provide the basis of members’ narratives and a culture for sharing stories will be actively supported and encouraged as the primary mechanism for improving improvement. The core team have significant experience of facilitating improvement and working with Q members and the improvement community. The risk of poor engagement will be mitigated by identifying members from the early Engineering Better Care workshops to assist in building the community.

What and how is your project going to share learning throughout?

The project will deliver a toolkit, based on the Engineering Better Care prototype that provides guidance on a systems approach to improvement. This will be a dynamic resource ‘owned’ by the Q members, updated and choreographed by the core team. The project will also deliver a forum and events to encourage such ownership and a culture of storytelling to sustain the development of case studies which will add insight as to the use of systems tools and the value of using a systems approach. The toolkit and its associated guidance and resources will be made freely available to a Q members.

How you can contribute

• Ideas for resources to include in a systems toolkit
• Identification of existing improvement toolkits that work
• Discussion on the best means to encourage toolkit ownership in a busy world
• Identification of core team members

continues in source:

Improving improvement | Q Community

source:

How Boyd finally got to the OODA loop – Slightly East of New

NOVEMBER 4, 2020 BY CHET

How Boyd finally got to the OODA loop

Chick Spinney, one of John Boyd’s closest associates, has revised his flow diagram depicting how Boyd’s strategic thinking evolved from his days flying F-86s in Korea in 1953 until his death in 1997.

In this chart, “ODA” is “orient-decide-act,” not “observe-decide-act.” As Chuck recalls, Boyd added “observation” in 1975, about the time he retired from the Air Force. “LWF” is the Air Force’s Lightweight Fighter program, which culminated in the flyoff between the YF-16 and YF-17 in 1974.

Note that Patterns of Conflict is about operating inside the OODA loop and says virtually nothing about the OODA loop itself. The only place Boyd develops — and draws — the OODA loop is in The Essence of Winning and Losing, 1996.

Chuck also highlights how Boyd returns to “Scientific/Philosophical Foundation Efforts” with Conceptual Spiral in 1992. Interesting to compare the two, the effects of 16 years of intense effort.

All of Boyd’s works, and a PDF of the above diagram, are available from our Articles page. I might also modestly recommend my “Origins of John Boyd’s Discourse,” which illustrates some of the domains Boyd investigated (e.g., evolution, complexity, Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, etc.) as he moved along Chuck’s progression.

source:

How Boyd finally got to the OODA loop – Slightly East of New

source:

LinkedIn

Piret Tõnurist • Innovation Lead at OECD

On November 18, OECD – OCDE will host a number of high level forums. I will be moderating one on #complexity, #systemsand #anticipation with the help of Chiara Bleckenwegner. The main question I will pose to the four leading experts will be on new methods government should introduce to deal better with uncertainty and complexity beyond Covid19. What have we learnt from 2020? This question will be tackled by:

Rovenskaya Elena, Program Director, Advanced Systems Analysis, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Hiroki Habuka, Deputy Director, Digital Economy Division, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan

Márton Herczeg, PhD, European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), Head of Strategy and Impact Unit

David Winickoff, Senior Policy Analyst, Science, Technology and Innovation Directorate, OECD

Register to #GovAfterShock here https://lnkd.in/dgtB-dN and join the session on the 18th!

You are also more then welcome to propose your own questions to the panel in comments below!

#innovation#systemsthinking#anticipation#futures#experimentation#eu#technology#strategy

source:

LinkedIn

source (LinkedIn)

(6) LinkedIn

SCiO DACH Buch Club mit Martin Dr. Pfiffner und seinem fantastischen Buch „Die dritte Dimension des Organisierens“ erschienen 2020 bei Springer/ Gabler mit 348 Seiten für 34.99 € als Taschenbuch. eBook ISBN: 978-3-658-29247-8, Softcover ISBN: 978-3-658-29246-1

Donnerstag den 28.01.2021 von 16:00 bis 17:30 Uhr GMT virtuell

Anmeldung unter: https://lnkd.in/dGdPJNe.
Die Teilnahme ist kostenlos.

Die 1. Dimension; die Aufbauorganisation

Die 2. Dimension; die Ablauforganisation

Die 3. Dimension des Organisierens; das Viable System Model mit seiner vollständigen Beschreibung von Steuerung und Kommunikation in einer Organisation.

Martin Pfiffner nimmt uns mit dem Buch mit auf eine Reise von mehr als 20 Jahren praktischer Erfahrung und Anwendung eines der wichtigsten Management Modelle unserer Zeit.

#vsm, #managment, #springer, #scio

SCiO a Community for System Practioners

www.systemspractice.org

source (LinkedIn)

(6) LinkedIn

source:

Systems Thinking Ontario – 2020-11-09

2020-11-09

November 9 (the second Monday of the month) is the 85th meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario. The registration will be on Eventbrite at https://redesigning-theories-of-change.eventbrite.ca .

Redesigning Our Theories of Theories of Change

Peter Jones presents a customized talk from the RSD9 plenary session for ST ON. Ryan Murphy joins with a full presentation of his RSD9 talk.

We often use the model of “theories of change” to argue for the process by which envisioned change programs might achieve their goals. Essentially these are the working theories by which we explain the logic of system change outcomes, and we often include quasi-systemic logic models to communicate them. ToCs are as ubiquitous in social innovation and philanthropy as business models are in startups and VCs. “Systems change” has emerged as a major movement in the worlds of impact investing, philanthropy, and the NGOs they fund, and the proposals expected to advance studies and change programs embrace the language of the theory of change.

• Do Theories of Change reflect coherent models of change that we can observe or assess in real social systems? If so, are logic models sufficient (do they correspond to reality)?
• How do we Represent Transformation? Framework of four Sensemaking Logics
• What are the meanings, purposes, effectiveness, basis in systemics, their common applications, uses and misuses of Theories of Change?
• Can we produce better theories for change through systemic design rationale?

Join us on Nov. 9 starting at 6:30pm ET.

Venue:

• The link for a Zoom conference will be sent upon preregistration.
• Unfortunately, due to the pandemic OCADU, sLab (Strategic Innovation Lab), 205 Richmond Street West, Room 410 is not available!

Suggested pre-reading:

• Murphy Jones (2020). Systemic Strategy: Systemic Design Methods for Complex Systems Change. RSD9 Symposium.
• Abstracts from RSD9:
  • Peter Jones, “The Social Construction of Systemic Change: Our Working Theories of Change” (parallel breakout session, October 14)
  • Ryan Murphy, “Systemic Strategy: Systemic Design Methods for Complex Systems Change” (parallel breakout session, October 15)
  • Peter Jones, “Redesigning Our Theories of Theories of Change“, (plenary session, October 16)

agenda in source:

source:

Systems Thinking Ontario – 2020-11-09

source:

Webinar Invite: Booklaunch of “The Age of Sustainability” (Wednesday Nov 4th)

Mark Swillingis Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development in the School of Public Leadership, University of Stellenbosch and Co-Director of the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (http://www0.sun.ac.za/cst/). He is the author of The Age of Sustainability: Just Transitions in a Complex World (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), co-author with Eve Annecke of Just Transitions: Explorations of Sustainability in an Unfair World (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2012), co-editor with Adriana Allen and Andreas Lampis of Untamed Urbanism (New York and London: Routledge, 2016), co-editor with Josephine Musango and Jeremy Wakeford Greening the South African Economy (Cape Town: Juta, 2016) and was the lead author with Ivor Chipkin et. al. of Shadow State: Politics of State Capture (Johannesburg: WITS Press, 2018). He is a member of UNEP’s International Resource Panel acting as Coordinator of the Cities Working Group (http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/) and is the Deputy Chair of the Board of the Development Bank of Southern Africa. He is co-lead author of The Weight of Cities: Resource Requirements of Future Urbanization, published in 2018 by the International Resource Panel. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Sheffield and Utrecht, and in 2018 was the Edward P. Bass Visiting Environmental Scholar at Yale University

source:

Webinar Invite: Booklaunch of “The Age of Sustainability” (Wednesday Nov 4th)

source:

The Project

The Project

• The UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems
• Objectives
• Futures Studies and the Discipline of Anticipation
  • Table summarizing major distinctions
  • Selected excerpts from two recent papers by two highly regarded professional futurists, Peter Bishop and Riel Miller
  • The paper laying down the basics of the Discipline of Anticipation

The UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems

The purpose of the Chair in Anticipatory Systems is to both develop and promote the Discipline of Anticipation, thereby bringing a critical idea to life. To this end, we have a two pronged strategy consisting of knowledge development and communication. The two are equally important. While many academic projects naturally emphasize knowledge development, we must also reach a large and disparate audience, and open minds locked within the longstanding legacy of reactive science. Thus, from a practical standpoint, how we conceptualize and communicate the Discipline of Anticipation is as important as the Discipline of Anticipation itself.

While anticipation has been widely studied within a number of different disciplines – including biology, anthropology, cognitive and social sciences – to date nobody has collected and systematically compared the results. For a preliminary survey see, however, R. Poli, The Many Aspects of Anticipation, Foresight, 2010, 12, p. 7-17, and the bibliography M. Nadin, Annotated Bibliography: Anticipation, International Journal of General Systems, 2010, 39(1), p. 35-133. Two figures stand as central contributors to the discipline of anticipation: the mathematical biologist Robert Rosen (see his Anticipatory Systems. Philosophical, Mathematical and Methodological Foundations, New York, Springer, 2nd ed. 2012, and Life Itself. A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature, Origin, and Fabrication of Life, New York, Columbia University Press, 1991) and the anthropologist John W. Bennett (see his Human Ecology as Human Behavior: Essays in Environmental and Development Anthropology, New Brunswick and London, Transaction Publishers, 2nd ed. 2002). The former established the theory of anticipatory systems; the latter the connection between anticipation and resilience. 

We propose to centralize the study of anticipation for the first time, and to define the Discipline of Anticipation as a cohesive body of knowledge. To this end, the chair will address a number of key questions, such as:

• What is anticipation? Are anticipations imposed by the mind, or are they aspects of reality, or does anticipation involves a relation with both?
• Are there different kinds of anticipation? What distinguishes them?
• Which are the connections between the Discipline of Anticipation and Futures Studies?
• What are the qualitative and quantitative aspects of anticipations? Can anticipation be described mathematically?
• Are there hierarchies of anticipations? How do they define their hierarchy?
• What visual phenomena are associated with anticipations, including magnification, scaling, zooming, expansion, detail, depth, and apparent size?
• How do anticipations relate to emergence and the budding science of qualities?
• What are the social applications of the Discipline of Anticipation?
• Can we relate anticipation to current interests in sustainability and resilience?

Objectives

The project’s main objective is the development of the Discipline of Anticipation, including the development of a system of anticipatory strategies and techniques. The more the culture of anticipation spreads, the easier it will be to develop socially acceptable anticipatory strategies. It will then be possible to accumulate relevant experience on how to think about the future and to use anticipatory methods. It will also be possible to try and develop a language and a body of practices that are more adapted for thinking about the future and for developing new ways to address threads and opportunities. 

The following outcomes are envisaged:

• Futures Literacy: Development of a set of protocols for the appropriate implementation on the ground of the different kinds of anticipation (under the rubric of futures literacy), together with syllabi and teaching materials on the Discipline of Anticipation.
• Anticipatory Capability Profile: Development of a Anticipatory Capability Profile for communities and institutions, together with a set of recommendations on how a community, organization or institution may raise its anticipatory performance.
• Resilience Profile: Setting of a resilience index and analysis of the resilience level of selected communities and regions, including a set of recommendations on how to raise their resilience level.

continues in source:

The Project

source:

A Conversation with Kim Sterelny about the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis – This View Of Life

A Conversation with Kim Sterelny about the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

By Kim Sterelny, David Sloan WilsonOne Comment

TVOL’s coverage of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) continues with an interview with Kim Sterelny, one of the world’s most prominent philosophers of biology. Sterelny has served as editor of the journal Biology & Philosophy since 2000 and his books include Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology, Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human Cognition, Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest, and The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique. Sterelny was central in the development of the EES project funded by the John Templeton foundation, which recently launched its own website. He was a participant in the Nature exchange “Does evolutionary biology need a rethink?”¹ (answering “yes”) as well as a coauthor of the major 2015 review article on the EES published in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.²

David Sloan Wilson: Welcome Kim. I recall many fine conversations with you. Let me begin by asking you to explain in general terms how philosophers contribute to the study of evolutionary biology. What do you bring to the table?

Kim Sterelny: A couple of things. For one, a lot of foundational questions in evolutionary biology are curious hybrids of conceptual, formal and empirical issues. Think for example of the history of gene selectionism or multi-level selection. It took a lot of hammering and tinkering to get clear which claims about selection were genuinely empirically and causally distinct; which were empirically equivalent but perhaps heuristically distinct, and which really were just verbal disputes. It is also true that philosophers bring both the time and the skills to do integrative and synthetic work across different research traditions. Biologists are with few exceptions almost forced to specialise quite narrowly; they have to produce data; philosophers only have to think about it.

continues in source:

A Conversation with Kim Sterelny about the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis – This View Of Life

It is a pleasure for us to launch our first Metaphorum webinar series with a confirmed program of speakers for the next four months. Our intention with this Webinar Series is to share innovations in theory and practice in organizational cybernetics and related systems approaches. We aim to develop as an active community of learning by sharing in these online conversations,  recent innovations in theory and methodology, critical reflections and insightful experiences. The webinar series aims at  creating a space for collective learning with other fellow cyberneticians, systems researchers and practitioners.

Once or twice a month we will have a Zoom webinar with selected speakers. All sessions are on Wednesdays from 5 to 6 pm (UK time).  The speaker will present in the first 30 min and then there will be 30 minutes for the participants to engage with the speaker. If the speaker agrees, we will also make all presentations available on the Metaphorum website.

If you want to participate in any of the webinars, please respond to this email by following the link and confirming in which webinars you’d like to participate.  We will send you links to forthcoming webinars – you can include as many webinars as you’d like in the form. There is no cost to attend the webinars for Metaphorum members.

Looking forward to have you with us in this webinars’ series.

Angela Espinosa, Allenna Leonard and Jon Walker

METAPHORUM WEBINAR SERIES 2020-2021 –
AGENDA October 2020- February 2021

See below for information on the first webinar, by Steve Morlidge, and the link to the session, for those who want to attend.

Please register by clicking on the following link, for links to forthcoming webinars and /or updates on the webinar series.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScakl5g41fH-6KTl9CYnfPQjJzycDy5uzGp7MuNwFpX6m5zXA/viewform?usp=sf_link

November the 4^th, 2020
Dr. Steve Morlidge
‘The VSM in 2020 – more relevant than ever?’

It has been said that Stafford Beer was 50 years ahead of his time. In this webinar Steve Morlidge will reflect on the relevance of the VSM from the perspective of someone dedicated to helping finance practitioners half a century distant after the first edition of Brain of The Firm was published.

Steve Morlidge 2020 Bio

General Management Thinker, Author, Speaker.

Steve Morlidge has 30 years of practical experience in designing and running performance management systems in Unilever, including three years as the lead of a global change project. He is a former chairman of the European Beyond Budgeting Round Table and now works as a management thinker, writer and speaker, drawing on his years of experience at the leading edge of performance management thought and practice. Steve Morlidge published Future Ready: How to Master Business Forecasting, John Wiley, 2010, ‘The Little Book of Beyond Budgeting’ and ‘The Little Book of Operational Forecasting’ through Matador in 2017 and 2018 respectively. His latest book ‘Present Sense: A practical guide to the science of measuring performance and the art of communicating it, with the brain in mind’ was published in November 2019.
He is on the editorial board of Foresight, a forecasting practitioner’s journal published by the International Institute of Forecasting to which he regularly contributes. He is also a cofounder of CatchBull, a supplier of forecasting performance management software and sits on the non-executive Board of the Beyond Budgeting Institute. Steve Morlidge is a visiting fellow at Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, UK and has a PhD from Hull Business School in Yorkshire, UK focusing on the application of systems concepts to the design of complex organizations. He completed his BA with honors, and he is a qualified management accountant (CIMA).

He can be reached at steve.morlidge@satoripartners.co.uk or steve.morlidge@catchbull.com

Metaphorum is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Dr. Steve Morlidge ‘The VSM in 2020 – more relevant than ever?’
Time: Nov 4, 2020 05:00 PM London
Join Zoom Meeting

https://us05web.zoom.us/j/84453800098?pwd=bGIxVlFNR21vNFlvMldJQlZjYUlMZz09

Meeting ID: 844 5380 0098
Passcode: 588408

source:

Methodology of Transdisciplinarity–Levels of Reality, Logic of the Included Middle and Complexity

Methodology of Transdisciplinarity–Levels of Reality, Logic of the Included Middle and Complexity

• January 2010
• Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science 1(1)

DOI: 10.22545/2010/0009Authors:

Basarab Nicolescu

(Full pdf at: http://www.basarab-nicolescu.ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/Docs_Notice/TJESNo_1_12_2010.pdf)

To read the article of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.Download citationCopy linkCitations (180)References (35)

Abstract

The concept of levels of Reality, formulated in 1982, is the key concept of transdisciplinar-ity 1 . The introduction of the levels of Reality induces a multidimensional and multi-ref-erential structure of Reality, signifying the coexistence between complex plurality and open unity. Every level is characterized by its incompleteness; the laws governing this level are just a part of the totality of laws governing all levels. And even the totality of laws does not exhaust the entire Reality; we have also to consider the interaction between Subject and Object. The zone between two different levels and beyond all levels is a zone of non-resistance to our experiences, representations, descriptions, images, and mathematical formulations. The Gödelian structure of levels of Reality implies the impossibility of a self-enclosed complete theory. Knowledge is forever open. The unity of levels of Reality of the Object and its complementary zone of non-resis-tance defines the transdisciplinary Object. The unity of levels of Reality of the Subject and this complementary zone of non-resistance defines the transdisciplinary Subject. The zone of non-resistance plays the role of a third between the Subject and the Object, an interac-tion term which allows the unification of the transdisciplinary Subject and the transdis-ciplinary Object. This interaction term is called the Hidden Third. The ternary partition (Subject, Object, Hidden Third) is, of course, radically different from the binary partition (Subject vs. Object) of classical realism.

source:

Methodology of Transdisciplinarity–Levels of Reality, Logic of the Included Middle and Complexity

Full pdf at: http://www.basarab-nicolescu.ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/Docs_Notice/TJESNo_1_12_2010.pdf