antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 5:30 pm on November 13, 2019

Complexity and systems thinking – January 2011, Merali and Allen

Complexity and systems thinking

January 2011

DOI: 10.4135/9781446201084.n1

Once the whole is divided, the parts need names. There are already enough names. One must know when to stop. Knowing when to stop averts trouble. Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea. Lau Tsu, Tao Te Ching.

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 8:48 am on November 13, 2019

Systemic Design event – the Design Council Mon 2 Dec 2019 at 17:30, Design Council, London, UK

Source: Systemic Design event Tickets, Mon 2 Dec 2019 at 17:30 | Eventbrite

DEC 02

Systemic Design event

by Design Council

About this Event

The challenges that we face today — the climate crisis, ageing populations, in-work poverty, polarisation of society — are not ones that anyone can tackle alone, and not ones that all the current answers aligned together would solve. Systems change is an approach that looks beyond individual ideas, creates the space and conditions for radical new ways of thinking to emerge and connects together often disparate groups who have a common cause.

As design has evolved over the last 30 years, growing from the design of products, through services to policy, and from buildings to places, designers have entered the world of systems change. Design adds immense value in the way that it visualises complexity, making it understandable; moves to making and taking action where others feel overwhelmed by that same complexity, and creates playful alternatives which can turn the we see a problem – and find its solution – on its head.

The Design Council and The Point People have been listening to designers who are working systemically to understand their practice, and how it is evolving. This event will share some current practice and case studies about how design is being used to solve some of society’s biggest challenges, which are tricky, complex and can’t be solved by one intervention alone.

This will be an inspiring evening for designers who want to work in this way, leaving you with stories to show how it can be done and approaches to designing deeply, collaboratively and radically, allowing you to play your part in tackling our toughest challenges and moving to a better future.

Jennie Winhall, Alt/Now, Rockwool Foundation
Cassie Robinson, Strategic Designer and Head of Digital Grant Making at the National Lottery Community Fund
Nick Stanhope, Shift Design
Alistair Parvin, Open Systems Lab
Fashion Revolution – tbc
Cat Drew, Design Council

Please register your interest using the ‘register’ button and we will contact you if your place at the event is confirmed.

Hosted by:

Date And Time

Mon, 2 December 2019 17:30 – 19:30 GMT

Location

Design Council Angel Building 407 St John Street London EC1V 4AB

View Map

OrganiserDesign Council

Organiser of Systemic Design event

Organiser Website Website

Design Council’s purpose is to make life better by design. We are an independent charity and the government’s advisor on design. Our vision is a world where the role and value of design is recognised as a fundamental creator of value, enabling happier, healthier and safer lives for all. Through the power of design, we make better processes, better products, better places, all of which lead to better performance.

Source: Systemic Design event Tickets, Mon 2 Dec 2019 at 17:30 | Eventbrite

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:12 pm on November 12, 2019

Service-dominant logic – Wikipedia

Historical perspectives: https://www.sdlogic.net/index.html

Foundations: https://www.sdlogic.net/foundations.html

Axioms and Foundational Premises (FPs) of S-D Logic

Axiom1	FP1	Service is the fundamental basis of exchange.
	FP2	Indirect exchange masks the fundamental basis of exchange.
	FP3	Goods are a distribution mechanism for service provision.
	FP4	Operant resources are the fundamental source of strategic benefit.
	FP5	All economies are service economies.
Axiom2	FP6	Value is cocreated by multiple actors,always including the beneficiary.
	FP7	Actors cannot deliver value but can participate in the creation and offering of value propositions.
	FP8	A service-centered view is inherently beneficiary oriented and relational.
Axiom3	FP9	All social and economic actors are resource integrators.
Axiom4	FP10	Value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary.
Axiom5	FP11	Value cocreation is coordinated through actor-generated institutions and institutional arrangements.

Source: Vargo and Lusch (2004), “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing” Journal of Marketing 68(January), 1-17. Vargo and Lusch (2008), “Service-Dominant Logic: Continuing the Evolution” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 36(Spring), 1-10, Vargo and Lusch (2016), “Institutions and axioms: an extension and update of service-dominant logic” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 1-19.

[This – specifically Axom 2, value is cocreated by multiple actors, always including the beneficiary – of which an early formulation appears to have been ‘value is cocreated with the customer’ – is a shock to me because I genuinely thought I had invented that! 🙂 – I say ‘value is always co-created with and for the citizen/customer’. Now I wonder if I picked that up somewhere – but I think I did come up with it by myself independently – just not first. Well, I suppose it’s just logic! So much of this fits so much with my public service transformation thinking…]

Source: Service-dominant logic – Wikipedia

Service-dominant logic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigation Jump to search

Marketing
Marketing Marketing management
Key concepts[hide] Distribution Pricing Retail Service Activation Brand licensing Brand management Co-creation Corporate identity Dominance Effectiveness Ethics Mystery shopping Promotion Research Segmentation Strategy Account-based marketing Digital marketing Product marketing Social marketing Influencer marketing Attribution
Promotional content[hide] Advertising Branding Corporate anniversary Direct marketing Loyalty marketing Mobile marketing On-hold messaging Personal selling Premiums Prizes Product placement Propaganda Publicity Sales promotion Sex in advertising Underwriting spot
Promotional media[hide] Behavioral targeting Brand ambassador Broadcasting Display advertising Drip marketing In-game advertising Mobile advertising Native advertising New media Online advertising Out-of-home advertising Point of sale Printing Product demonstration Promotional merchandise Publication Visual merchandising Web banner Word-of-mouth
v t e

Service-dominant (S-D) logic is a meta-theoretical framework for explaining value creation, through exchange, among configurations of actors. The underlying idea of S-D logic is that humans apply their competences to benefit others and reciprocally benefit from others’ applied competences through service-for-service exchange (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). Since the publication of the first S-D logic article entitled “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing”^[1] in 2004 in Journal of Marketing, S-D logic has become a cocreated effort of numerous scholars across disciplines, who share the common goal of contributing to the understanding of human value cocreation, by developing an alternative to traditional logics of exchange. Hence, S-D logic has been continually extended and elaborated. Among the most important extensions have been (1) the development of the service ecosystems perspective that allows a more holistic, dynamic, and systemic perspective of value creation and (2) the emphasis of institutions and institutional arrangements as coordination mechanisms in such systems (Vargo and Lusch, 2016).

Continues in source: Service-dominant logic – Wikipedia

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 11:34 am on November 12, 2019

Pathways to New Community Paradigms

Lots of rich content here and great engagement from Brian Dowling at www.twitter.com/BrianDRPM

Source: Pathways to New Community Paradigms

This blog is part of an online learning platform which includes the Pathways to New Community Paradigms Wiki and a number of other Internet based resources to explore what is termed here ‘new community paradigms‘ which are a transformational change brought about by members of a community.It is intended to offer resources and explore ideas with the potential of purposefully directing the momentum needed for communities to create their own new community paradigms.

It seeks to help those interested in becoming active participants in the governance of their local communities rather than merely passive consumers of government service output. This blog seeks to assist individuals wanting to redefine their role in producing a more direct democratic form of governance by participating both in defining the political body and establishing the policies that will have an impact their community so that new paradigms for their community can be chosen rather than imposed.

Friday, September 6, 2019

We are, each of us, a system. We are, each of us, systems in multitudes

We are, each of us, a system. We are, each of us, systems in multitudes. We are both at the same time. We are ourselves, as systems, of the same nature as those systems manifested within the world to both our senses and mind continuing the discussion from the previous post and Still Learning to Understand Systems. Separated, from all that we are not without, and from what we are within, as well as between other systems by boundaries that are placed there by us.

The most determinative means, it seems to me, but with the least amount of information of assigning a boundary to a system is to give it a label. Buckminster Fuller’s definition of a system as “the first subdivision of universe into a conceivable entity” provides an important initial context without particularities.

Russell Ackoff, whose focus on systems was in addressing practical, real-world messes, the kind raised by uncertainty and complexity, said that any particular or specific system could be characterized by three essential conditions which I could also see as being able to assist in establishing the boundary of a system as defined by Fuller.

First, each simple element in a system has an effect on the behavior of the whole system. If it doesn’t have such an effect then it’s not part of the system and belongs outside the boundary. Second, that within a system each element is affected by at least one other element in that system, and that none of the elements has an independent effect on the whole. Every element then effects some other element or elements in the system and only has effect on the whole in conjunction with some other element or elements. Third, it is not possible to develop totally independent subsystems from a subgrouping of a system’s elements. Any subsystems within a system that can be made totally independent belong on the outside of the system. It will likely take some experimenting to determine which elements fulfill all three categories. This still leaves a potentially large portion of elements that can be placed on either side of a boundary depending upon how it or they are defined but it is then a matter of consensus or coercion, both of which, again in my view, can be detrimental to understanding a system.

Fuller’s definition, however, is not merely an esoteric abstraction but can provide an immediate, visual illustration of the boundaries of a three-tier hierarchy anchored in geometry.

The simplest possible three-dimensional configuration or minimum set of relations representing a stable structure (which can also be fractalized) within the “real world” is a tetrahedron, a four-sided, triangular-faced pyramid having four vertices, four faces and six edges subdividing the world into all that is outside the system’s structure (environment), the structure of the system itself (system), and the system’s interior (bounded elements and connections) having profound, practical implications for all system designers.

Fuller’s definition of a system bears a particularly significant illustration of the aspect of verticality or nestability, the means of forming a hierarchy, series, or sequence wherein each member, element, or set is contained in and contains the next. From a systems thinking view of the world, this concept of hierarchy finds expression, in the natural world, as a stratified organization of increasing levels of complexity, which can be expressed as a sequence corresponding to levels of emergence distinguishing one level from the next by novel qualitative properties.

Starting with elementary particles, to atoms and molecules to become various forms of matter, to leap from inorganic to simple organic life-forms, to evolve into complex organisms, and in aggregate evolve into whole ecosystems, leaping again to consciousness to include humans and subsequently human society. Each level represents a cluster of interacting sub-components, consisting of elements of the previous level.

Each level can be distinguished by the relative strength of the respective interactions by which it is constrained. Each level being stronger within and weaker between other levels. It is the constrained internal bonds that allow for the individual integrity of a level to stand out against the background of its environment and provide for a definition of boundary conditions.

This is very different from a strictly reductionist based top-down complicated systems of command and control hierarchy, discussed in the last post, that feature little in the way of nested verticality. It again means that from a systems thinking perspective one needs to optimize on at least on three levels, the system under consideration, its environment, and its internal components, as a coherent, harmonious integration of relevant aspects for any constructive, systemic intervention. The familiar and conventional organizational or governance structures of our typical commerce, political, or social affairs organizations is simply inadequate, in not being internally rich enough, to address the demands of an increasingly complex world.

Many examples of business and governance management perpetuate a model that imposes structures with grossly insufficient variety such as conventional concepts of leadership that violate the law of requisite variety by popularly entrusting power in a single person. Consider the complex interactions that increasingly characterize today’s society, in relation to the typical, still-prevailing, hierarchical, command-and-control structure, and I would add afflicted by ”complicatedness”. Such low-variety models ultimately only impoverish the system that is supposedly “under control.”

Another cybernetic term due to Ross Ashby is ”Ultrastability”, the cybernetic concept of regulation relating to the ability of a system to restore homeostatic equilibrium after unexpected perturbations even when a trajectory for doing so has not been specially pre-specified or built-in. A more complex, dynamic form of adaptation manifested in the typical homeostatic mechanism by which a fixed decision rule is applied to trigger an appropriate corrective action whenever equilibrium is disturbed.

In more interesting cases, read as more complex cases, such as brain-like systems, societies, or ecosystem, a sufficient amount of variety can be “built” into a system so that its internal reconfiguration can be made to match unpredictable changes in its environment even if a specific decision rule is not already embedded in its structure. The general rule then becomes “keep changing internal configurations,” or basically rewire the internal variety of the system in the search for a subset that matches new demands in real-time. The internal variety of a system, even if very high and ultrastable is, however, still finite as an entirely new environmental context-condition may require new options that the system cannot generate.

This gives rise to Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety which states that “Only variety can absorb variety.” Effective regulation then can only be achieved when the regulating system contains at a minimum, the same amount of variety as the system being regulated. The requirement for requisite variety is applicable regardless of the type of system whether automated devices, technology processes, ecosystems, or social systems.

One means of enhancing requisite variety is redundancy. The term redundancy, commonly understood as unnecessary, in information theory refers to protecting information integrity from deterioration due to effects of background noise by increasing information content or channel capacity.

At a state of maximum disorder or entropy, when no distinctions can be made or no information is discernible and activity ceases redundancy will be at zero. Redundancy then allows for more potential “possibilities.” If the rate of change of a system’s redundancy remains positive then it is self-organizing according to Heinz Von Foerster. This would logically seem to extend further to ”Redundancy of Potential Command”.

Internal complexity brought about by requisite variety allows for the emergence and re-emergence of different configurations in response to changing events. The important implication being that “’ living,’ self-organizing systems, including social systems of all types, depending on their internal complexity and inherent redundancy for resilience and long-term viability”.

Distributing and determining by function and relevant knowledge rather than by authority assigned by rank and seniority the processes of decision-making across a network-like organizational structure is termed ”Heterarchy” The potential for so-called “command” is thus distributed, or made redundant, over a large number of components and its location shifts constantly within the network. It is not permanently localized and no fixed vertical hierarchy of authority is discernible.

Fuller’s definition of a system can be said to transverse across the chasm between the solely conceptual and the countless entities with distinct and independent existence within our universe, laying between that which is conceivable but which is not an entity within our universe and that which may perhaps be an entity, but that is not conceivable. In total, what we call our reality. It brings systems, conceptually defined, to a state of reality within which Norbert Wiener’s Cybernetics can be and by necessity needs to be applied.

The seemingly, abstract, remote and perhaps even, esoteric concepts of variety, ultrastability, redundancy of potential command, synergy and self-organization are all related or are constrained together describing and arguably determining the characteristics of regulating mechanisms that underlie external behavior of complex systems. The practical implication of which are far-reaching and significant not only in that they shape the conduct of human affairs but they could be crucial in resolving the many sustainability-related challenges we are facing. The challenge of all interventions in any socio-ecosystemic domain would be then to keep an open, dynamic stance, working in tandem with the self-organizing properties of the system, rather than inadvertently destroying them.

Source: Pathways to New Community Paradigms

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 6:30 am on November 12, 2019

The Recurring Case of ‘Recursion’: a pattern for making sense of the world | CBC Radio

I love Ideas from CBC – who else would have a whole one-hour show on recursion?

Some call it “self-similarity.” Others define it vaguely as “wheels within wheels” or refer to the image of nesting Russian dolls. For such a fundamental concept, recursion is strangely less famous and more often overlooked than it deserves to be. With help from a cognitive scientist, a language expert, and a physicist, Paul Kennedy tries to remedy this state of affairs, without getting himself tied up in knots within knots within knots…

Source: The Recurring Case of ‘Recursion’: a pattern for making sense of the world | CBC Radio

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:17 am on November 12, 2019

The Stacey matrix

Source: The Stacey matrix

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:16 am on November 12, 2019

Summary: The Macy Conferences

American Society for Cybernetics Links Page: A selection of pointers to relevant materials on cybernetics and systems thinking.

Source: Summary: The Macy Conferences

Cybernetics …

“the science and art of understanding”…

– Humberto Maturana

“interfaces hard competence with the hard problems of the soft sciences”

– Heinz von Foerster

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR CYBERNETICS

We stand

ASC HOME

FOUNDATIONSCoalescence of Cybernetics

on the shoulders of giants

BACK:
History: Chapter 2

SUMMARY: The Macy Conferences

ABOUT THIS SUMMARY

As previously mentioned, there is a lack of comprehensive documentation on the Macy Conferences. Part of this derives from the fact that the first five conferences – by all accounts the most lively and energizing – were never formally documented with published proceedings. Part of this derives from the fact that it was not until Steve Joshua Heims undertook his massive research decades after the fact that anyone addressed the Macy Conferences as a historical subject. Even Heims’ work, impressive though it is, doesn’t bother to give a uniformly detailed historical account of the conferences.This summary is not claimed to provide a comprehensive account of the conferences. It is simply a collated set of basic facts along with such illustrative tidbits as can be gleaned from Heims’ The Cybernetics Group, Dupuy’s Mechanization of the Mind, and other sources.

Source: Summary: The Macy Conferences

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:15 am on November 12, 2019

Looking Back in History: The Macy Conferences | EMCSR

Source: Looking Back in History: The Macy Conferences | EMCSR

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 2:44 am on November 12, 2019

The Truth – A Paskian Perspective – on the CYBCOM Google Group

A regular reminder that the CYBCOM mailing list exists – (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/cybcom) – and contains gems like this

Source: The Truth – A Paskian Perspective – Google Groups

Nick Green

11 Nov 2019

Dear All

I tried to keep it short but Pask is a hard taslmaster!:-) The question is “how free of ambiguity is the analogy describing an event?”. Here goes:

If an observer or participant witnesses an event a concept is formed and a description may be produced. This process is subjective and private for the atoms that make us. The concept is interpreted by a participant and a description produced. However the description of an event in a particular context is limited by the perspectives of the recipient and the length of the observation time (aka Faith no less!). The test of the Truth of a description is in its applicability said Pask. In general the description will produce a new relation and the question is “Is the relation correct?” e.g. my name is Nick Green, or did the bus leave at ten o’clock, water boils at approximately 100 degrees C. More taxing might be e.g. “Did they like it?”.

Events can be caused spontaneously and thus are observable and respectable or they may require some preliminary act or stimulus to be produced in which case they are responsible (This is the difference between a classical measurement and a quantum measurement). Descriptions if shared and interpreted by another participant and found to be applicable can lead to Agreement or as meanings are refined, ambiguities are removed, agreement-to-disagree or separation (and thanks to Bernard Scott and the late Ranulph Glanville for pointing this out to me and, of course, Paul Pangaro whose thesis introduced the forces separating Concepts). Pask’s famous No Doppelgangers dictum insists that no two descriptions are the same unless great care is taken and agreed standard consensus methods or rituals performed eg integer counting with the Natural numbers.

But even then in some extreme limit all products are all different. Results are never identical at some level of precision. Perfect copies, like Truths, or correct descriptions are impossible. Enormous redundancies in systems are required to overcome these practical limitations. There is, as Pask once instructed me “No such thing as invariance” (Day one of my second job with him).

We proceed in practice by accepting a level of variance which is minimized as we remove ambiguity (by considering the precursor concepts and descriptions that are necessary). We consider the epistemology of the semantics we apply in producing our description. This is often called evidence.

We are actually intuitively using the scientific method here by comparing and describing, as unambiguously as possible, the differences. When we think we prune our entailment mesh of concepts (memories) to some necessary depth set by the level of ambiguity or imprecision participants can tolerate.

This all arises from applying ideas embodied in Pask’s axioms of Interactions of Actor Theory (see wiki). We seek replication of the description of a concept, we seek a consensus agreement amongst participants so that meanings can be more easily shared. This not only describes scientific method, it describes democracy! No doubts Gordon was deep. Many thought him genius. His colleagues, including me, were too often sceptical of this. His insistence on the “hard carapace” (implying systems make their own boundaries) and No Doppelgangers were barely appreciated by us. I stand to be corrected.

In the end he settled on a cooling Nature’s need to produce innovative coherences which participants (be they atomic, human or international) hope will persist. A principle we see Nature applying both in Cosmology and Evolution. Coherence being strictly defined as closed systems of spins with constant average phase angle shedding radiation to maintain both thermostasis or frequency of Interaction and thus equilbrium. These coherences exist as concepts in the brain or the states of persisting material objects when regarded as collections of interacting waves or messages. These days most physicists would agree (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information). The information content of objects is increasingly seen as their fundamental property. This permits one to think of Cybernetics as “the study of the messages that atoms exchange”.

Pask favoured Rescher’s Coherence Theory of Truth but with the restriction that set boundaries and members exert a repulsive force. In his Last Theorem he stated “Like Concepts (or spins) repel and unlike attract”.

One lesson from this for web users is they cannot escape responsibility for their messages. We have to ask ourselves is the web’s pseudo anonymity really a good thing?

Best

Source: The Truth – A Paskian Perspective – Google Groups

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 2:36 am on November 12, 2019

Object Process Methodology – Wikipedia

Source: Object Process Methodology – Wikipedia

Object Process Methodology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Graphical contents: an example of a diagram in OPM

Graphical contents OPL: an example of the OPM language

Information mapping

Topics and fields
Business decision mapping Data visualization Graphic communication Infographics Information design Knowledge visualization Mental model Morphological analysis Visual analytics Visual language
Node–link approaches
Argument map Cladistics Cognitive map Concept lattice Concept map Conceptual graph Decision tree Dendrogram Graph drawing Hyperbolic tree Hypertext Issue map Issue tree Layered graph drawing Mind map Object-role modeling Organizational chart Radial tree Semantic network Sociogram Timeline Topic map Tree structure
See also
Design rationale Diagrammatic reasoning Entity–relationship model Geovisualization List of concept- and mind-mapping software Olog Problem structuring methods Semantic Web Treemapping Wicked problem
v t e

Object Process Methodology (OPM) is a conceptual modeling language and methodology for capturing knowledge and designing systems, specified as ISO/PAS 19450.^[1] Based on a minimal universal ontology of stateful objects and processes that transform them, OPM can be used to formally specify the function, structure, and behavior of artificial and natural systems in a large variety of domains.

OPM was conceived and developed by Dov Dori. The ideas underlying OPM were published for the first time in 1995.^[2] Since then, OPM has evolved and developed.

The ontology of OPM and ontology of Navya-Nyāya an ancient Hindu school of thought in india are identical.

In 2002, the first book on OPM^[3] was published, and on December 15, 2015, after six years of work by ISO TC184/SC5, ISO adopted OPM as ISO/PAS 19450.^[1] A second book on OPM was published in 2016.^[4]

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 2:33 am on November 12, 2019

NERCCS 2020: Third Northeast Regional Conference on Complex Systems, University at Buffalo, NY, April 1-3, 2020

via Complexity Explorer

Source: NERCCS 2020: Third Northeast Regional Conference on Complex Systems

NERCCS 2020: Third Northeast Regional Conference on Complex Systems

NERCCS 2020: The Third Northeast Regional Conference on Complex Systems will follow the success of NERCCS 2019 and NERCCS 2018 to promote the emerging venue of interdisciplinary scholarly exchange for complex systems researchers in the Northeast U.S. region to share their research outcomes through presentations and post-conference online publications, network with their peers in the region, and promote inter-campus collaboration and the growth of the research community.

NERCCS will particularly focus on facilitating the professional growth of early career faculty, postdocs, and students in the region who will likely play a leading role in the field of complex systems science and engineering in the coming years.

NERCCS 2020: Third Northeast Regional Conference on Complex Systems at University at Buffalo, NY, April 1-3, 2020

Source: NERCCS 2020: Third Northeast Regional Conference on Complex Systems

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 2:32 am on November 12, 2019

P35 SIG Complexity & network governance – at the International Research Society for Public Management 2020 | 22-24 April 2020, Tampere Universities, Tampere, Finland

Conference web page: https://events.tuni.fi/irspm2020/

And submissions still open until 14 November

Source: P35 SIG Complexity & network governance | International Research Society for Public Management 2020 | Tampere Universities

P35 SIG Complexity & network governance

Panel Chairs:
Elizabeth Eppel, Robyn Keast, Erik-Hans Klijn, Mary-Lee Rhodes and Joris Voets

Corresponding Chair:
Mary-Lee Rhodes, rhodesml@tcd.ie

Description:
In 2019, the IRSPM Board approved the establishment of a new Special Interest Group (SIG) on Complexity and Network Governance. IRSPM 2020 marks the first ‘official’ meeting of the SIG and the conveners are delighted to welcome submissions from scholars and practitioners on any of the key themes / questions that the Special Interest Group hopes to address. These are:

The Meta-governance question:

If governments increasingly want & need to tackle wicked issues in & use networks for service-delivery, how does meta-governance of these networks unfold in practice? We need to develop the concept & require more empirical study how this works (or not) in practice & why.

The Performance question:

If we are increasingly dealing with complexity and work through networks, how to measure results & performance? Some conceptual frameworks have been developed over the years, but we need to develop them further and add more empirical research to the conceptual work done so far.

The Leadership question:

While network management & managing complexities has been studied for some time now, leading to interesting insights and models, the perspective of leadership and the traits, skills & competencies of leaders is still relatively new. How can we identify & develop collaborative/network leadership? What can such leadership bring to the complexity table?

The Comparative question:

Many scholars address similar questions, but rarely from an international, comparative perspective. Can we develop a comparative strategy to overcome surveys, QCA’s, case studies, etc. that are limited to particular countries, why (not) and how?

The Methodological question:

Various new research methods (like Qualitative Comparative Analysis, and Q sort) are emerging that offer avenues for network research and looking at the complex nature of networks and complex decision-making. Papers addressing the development of complexity-friendly research methods are welcome.

The Practical question:

Dealing with complexity & networks is increasingly important for practitioners, but they more often than not remain outside the debates at conferences like IRSPM. How do practitioners manage, evaluate, lead in this respect? Which tools & schemes have been devised so far and can we develop them (further)?

It is expected that the panel will run over several days of the conference, and we plan to have between 10 and 20 papers to allow for intensive discussion and development. We also plan to reserve one session for a discussion on how we might organize other activities throughout the year and upcoming special issues and handbooks relevant to the theme(s) of the SIG.

Source: P35 SIG Complexity & network governance | International Research Society for Public Management 2020 | Tampere Universities

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:32 am on November 11, 2019

An unlikely tonic for organizational disorder – nuno borges – Medium

Another great piece of organisational systems thinking

Source: An unlikely tonic for organizational disorder – nuno borges – Medium

An unlikely tonic for organizational disorder

nuno borges

Following

Nov 10 · 16 min read

Many modern organizations are in a state of disorder. Prior success for the large enterprise generally ossifies through the preservation of structure, practices, and norms. As we rocket along the law of accelerated returns through the 21st Century, the world around us, the environment, is changing context so quickly that organizations struggle to synchronize their internal rate of change. A quick survey of the Fortune 500 over the last 50 years yields the graveyard of persistent disorder and change-averse behaviour. Organizations that refuse to acknowledge the growing complexity around them, and seek to preserve their tenuous hold on historical success, often simply die. This should not be misinterpreted as an unethical outcome, but rather, a natural consequence of a self-organizing system that lost the tension between environmental change and its own adaptive response.

This article will examine large hierarchical organizations struggling to adapt within their changing environment, and offer a set of perspectives, or an avoidance strategy, crafted from the lens of complexity. I will use Cilliers’ paper What we can learn from a theory of complexity? (2000) as a structural frame for constructing an approach. Sonja Blignaut has given similar critical treatment to this topic in her fantastic article 7 Implications of seeing organizations as complex systems.

Continues in source: An unlikely tonic for organizational disorder – nuno borges – Medium

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 6:54 pm on November 10, 2019

Encouraging Systems Change – Heart of the Art

Source: Encouraging Systems Change – Heart of the Art

Encouraging Systems Change

John Atkinson

In truth, references to the ways in which we have always done things are stories we tell more than they are a reality. The ways that we do things are always adapting. New technology, different forms of governance, resource availability or shortages have all over time shaped the way anything gets done. As humans have moved from small communities, to kingdoms, to democracies, the way things get done has adapted. These changes in modes of governance have been emergent. They have arisen from the contingencies and opportunities of the day, unplanned and undirected.

Even those who know that systems change cannot be commanded are seduced by the collective view that it is possible. We join with others in writing reports that describe an ideal future state and the ways to get there. We convene workshops to agree policies. We describe and instigate pilot projects in the hope that we can roll these out as global exemplars. We set outcomes, presenting them as objectives for global change. We do all this because we share a belief that those with the power can be convinced of the need both to command change and then to control it for the common good.

Most leadership activity actually acts to deter the likely emergence of a new state rather than encourage it. Traditional modes of leadership need to hold attention, gain credit, occupy ground and own a message: they can so easily suck energy from those who might otherwise contribute. They may suppress differing opinions in overt ways by use of organisational or personal power. Sometimes they may do this less obviously by crafting mission, vision or value statements that exclude the diversity of thought and opinion.

And we must train ourselves to let go of our need to be credited with success. As systems leaders we are keenly aware that all systems, in order to preserve their identities, will react rapidly to any attempts at changing. We know that the work we do to form and tend to relationships is what matters the most in creating the conditions for positive emergence – if we focus instead on our personal need to achieve a particular result and receive credit from our peers or beyond, we may fail to see those who we should be seeing and hear the voices that need to be heard. By letting others take the credit and accolades for whatever emerges, we can be happy in the knowledge that we have contributed as catalysts to the enabling of fundamental change.

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 5:55 pm on November 10, 2019

The Cybernetic Aspects of OODA Loop:

Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.

Boyd2

I had briefly discussed OODA loop in my previous post. In today’s post, I will continue looking at OODA loop and discuss the cybernetic aspects of OODA loop. OODA loop was created by the great American military strategist, John Boyd. OODA stands for Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. The simplest form of OODA loop, taken from Francis Osinga, is shown below.

Simple OODA

The OODA loop is a framework that can be used to describe how a rational being acts in a changing environment. The first step is to take in the available information as part of Observation. With the newly gathered information, the rational being has to gage the analyzed and synthesized information against the previous sets of information, relevant schema and mental models. The relevant schema and mental models are updated as needed based on the new set of information. This allows the rational being to better Orient itself for the next step…

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