antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:22 pm on August 26, 2019

Whole-system change: case study of factors facilitating early implementation of a primary health care reform in a South African province – Schneider et al, 2014

via @sys_innovation

Five “simple rules” of successful large-system transformation

A mix of formal leadership with distributed leadership
The presence of feedback loops
Paying attention to past system history
Engaging front line providers
Engaging end-usershttps://t.co/is7TzTBkWD

— Systems Innovation (@Sys_innovation) August 24, 2019

Source: Whole-system change: case study of factors facilitating early implementation of a primary health care reform in a South African province

. 2014; 14: 609.

Published online 2014 Nov 29. doi: 10.1186/s12913-014-0609-y

PMCID: PMC4261614

PMID: 25432243

Whole-system change: case study of factors facilitating early implementation of a primary health care reform in a South African province

Helen Schneider, Rene English, Hanani Tabana, Thesandree Padayachee, and Marsha Orgill

Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract

Background

Whole-system interventions are those that entail system wide changes in goals, service delivery arrangements and relationships between actors, requiring approaches to implementation that go beyond projects or programmes.

Methods

Drawing on concepts from complexity theory, this paper describes the catalysts to implementation of a whole-system intervention in the North West Province of South Africa. This province was an early adopter of a national primary health care (PHC) strategy that included the establishment of PHC outreach teams based on generalist community health workers. We interviewed a cross section of provincial actors, from senior to frontline, observed processes and reviewed secondary data, to construct a descriptive-explanatory case study of early implementation of the PHC outreach team strategy and the factors facilitating this in the province.

Results

Implementation of the PHC outreach team strategy was characterised by the following features: 1) A favourable provincial context of a well established district and sub-district health system and long standing values in support of PHC; 2) The forging of a collective vision for the new strategy that built on prior history and values and that led to distributed leadership and ownership of the new policy; 3) An implementation strategy that ensured alignment of systems (information, human resources) and appropriate sequencing of activities (planning, training, piloting, household campaigns); 4) The privileging of ‘community dialogues’ and local manager participation in the early phases; 5) The establishment of special implementation structures: a PHC Task Team (chaired by a senior provincial manager) to enable feedback and ensure accountability, and an NGO partnership that provided flexible support for implementation.

Conclusions

These features resonate with the deliberative, multi-level and context sensitive approaches described as the “simple rules” of successful PHC system change in other settings. Although implementation was not without tensions and weaknesses, particularly at the front-line of the PHC system, the case study highlights how a collective vision can facilitate commitment to and engagement with new policy in complex organisational environments. Successful adoption does not, however, guarantee sustained implementation at scale, and we consider the challenges to further implementation.

Keywords: Whole-system change, Early implementation, Primary health care, Community health workers, South Africa

…

Because system wide interventions involve many players and sub-systems in complex webs of interaction (both formal and informal), the pathways and impacts of these interventions are inherently unpredictable. Complexity theory suggests, however, that most complex systems have a few key rules underpinning them [17]. In their review of Canadian experiences with primary health care reforms, Best et al. [11] identified five “simple rules” of successful large-system transformation.

They were:

A mix of designated (formal) leadership with distributed leadership in the change process
The presence of feedback loops
Paying attention to past system history
Engaging front line/powerful providers
Engaging end-users (families and communities)

The “simple rules” emphasize the need for collective or distributed leadership in the change process, and are therefore not only driven by top managers of organisations. Actors at the coal-face of systems, often the actual implementers of policy, may have very different interests and perspectives than their managers. Referred to as “street level bureaucrats” [18], they are faced with the immediate consequences – sometimes unanticipated – of new initiatives, and have to reconcile the demands from the top with the reality of resource constraints in the service delivery environment. They are able to exercise discretionary power in either accommodating or resisting policy initiatives and in shaping them in ways that fit with their every day realities. A political perspective on implementation, therefore, would see it as inherently contested and a negotiated combination of top down implementation with bottom up reactions and accommodations [19]. As implied by Best et al. [11] processes that explicitly seek to engage the frontline create the spaces for this negotiation.

…

Continues in source: Whole-system change: case study of factors facilitating early implementation of a primary health care reform in a South African province

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 7:00 am on August 21, 2019

Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety makes it to BusinessBalls.com

Source: Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety – BusinessBalls.com

W. Ross Ashby was a pioneering British cyberneticist and psychiatrist who described a law regarding the levels of variety and responses in a given system, later known as Ashby’s Law.

Table of contents

1. Variety

2. Ashby’s Law

3. Strategy and Flexibility

Variety

What is Variety?

Variety, with regards to cybernetics, is simply a descriptor of the number of possible states within a system.
For example, a light switch has a variety of 2 (on and off), whilst a single die has a variety of 6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
The number of states of variety depends on what can be sensed by the observer/the context (e.g. infinitesimal changes of light by a dimming switch may not be detected).

Variety grows exponentially with the size of organisations and major systems, creating vast amounts of complexity with regards to its interactions. Some real-world systems have levels of variety which are effectively infinite. However, our perceptions attenuate (‘filter-out’) any variety which is irrelevant to what we are trying to observe.

Variety Attenuators

Attenuators within human beings are formed by our physiology and by social conditioning, and similar processes/bases for attenuation exist within organisations. However, these business attenuators often filter out information which can be crucial to operation, thus being damaging to the success and effectiveness of organisations.

Variety Amplifiers

Similarly, we often attempt to increase our own production of variety as an adaptive strategy to deal with high levels of variety intruding from our environment. The obvious example within humans is our brains – millions of neurons, synaptic connections and subsequent systems which create innumerable combinations and levels of variety. Within humans, the complexity of our brains and their systems created a repertoire of strategies and capabilities which could deal with unexpected variety produced by all kinds of environment.

Ashby’s Law

W. Ross Ashby was a British cyberneticist and psychologist who, during the 1960s, proposed a law with regards to levels of variety and regulation within biological systems. In his words:

When the variety or complexity of the environment exceeds the capacity of a system (natural or artificial) the environment will dominate and ultimately destroy that system.

This law, now well-known as the First Law of Cybernetics, can also be described as:

In order to deal properly with the diversity of problems the world throws at you, you need to have a repertoire of responses which are (at least) as nuanced as the problems you face.

Or, even more simply:

Variety absorbs variety.

Systems/organisms must have a number of control mechanisms or responses which are at least equal to, or greater than, the number of potential disturbances/challenges that the systems must face.

Though this law was originally devised with regards to how organisms are able to (and are forced to) adapt to their environments, it was quickly adapted relative to Claude Shannon’s information theorem, and systems in general. These ideas were built upon later by Stafford Beer with regards to organisational/societal control and managerial structures.

Example: some writers have suggested that a winning sports team (e.g. football) can be described as operating with more variety than the losing team.

Though the losing team’s defence may have practised and developed many systems for defending, the other team’s attacking strategies proved too varied and resulted in them scoring more goals.

Strategy and Flexibility

For organisations and teams, Ashby’s law effectively means that they must always remain more flexible with their approaches to strategy and operation than the levels of structure and complexity within their systems and operating environment. Sometimes this variety is small, but sometimes it can be large, and therefore it is up to the organisations, teams, and the leaders within them to assess the appropriateness of their current systems for the environment they operate in.

The focus is often on efficiency within organisational structures, rather than on the variety needed to survive, adapt and thrive on innovation. Standardisation does work well when the variety the organisation is exposed to is known and limited (e.g. repetitive production of the same goods or products within the organisational core) but not when it is unknown, or unlimited (e.g. project management groups, innovation departments, or the police). Standardisation – such as producing a fixed range of products – works by reducing the levels of variety available. However, the complexity of other operating environments, particularly in the digital age, means that this is no longer feasible.

Teams and organisations which face high quantities of unknown and far-reaching variety must develop systems which allow them to respond to external stimuli and challenges beyond the individual capacity of their members and processes. Systems and subsystems responsible for innovation, or managing change/variety should be adept at absorbing information (e.g. new market information, new strategies, inventions) and forming new strategies and services themselves.

Information flow and communication are also extremely important when developing hierarchies and structures which can respond to many different stimuli, as differing flows of information and new combinations of processes create unique responses and actions (recursion). This communication can be through channels internally within the organisation and with external individuals, associates and consultants who offer greater flexibility and variety in response. The variety of stimuli being received should, in theory, be able to be dealt with by different combinations of the system’s hierarchy.

Formal strategies and approaches are often useful as references and systems in response to certain stimuli, especially those which are often repeated in similar forms. However, they are not necessarily useful when the environment is particularly variable and the organisation or team often finds itself faced with new and challenging scenarios.

The more variable the operational environment, the more flexible the organisation and its internal systems need to be.

Classifying specification problems as variants of Goodhart’s Law

Victoria Krakovna

(Coauthored with Ramana Kumar and cross-posted from the Alignment Forum.)

There are a few different classifications of safety problems, including the Specification, Robustness and Assurance (SRA) taxonomy and the Goodhart’s Law taxonomy. In SRA, the specification category is about defining the purpose of the system, i.e. specifying its incentives. Since incentive problems can be seen as manifestations of Goodhart’s Law, we explore how the specification category of the SRA taxonomy maps to the Goodhart taxonomy. The mapping is an attempt to integrate different breakdowns of the safety problem space into a coherent whole. We hope that a consistent classification of current safety problems will help develop solutions that are effective for entire classes of problems, including future problems that have not yet been identified.

The SRA taxonomy defines three different types of specifications of the agent’s objective: ideal (a perfect description of the wishes of the human designer)…

View original post 1,324 more words

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:18 am on August 20, 2019

Why model? | Integration and Implementation Insights

Source: Why model? | Integration and Implementation Insights

Why model?

August 20, 2019 Community Member ConceptsAuthor – Steven Lade, Communication,Complexity, Mental models, Modelling, Prediction, Wicked problems

By Steven Lade

What do you think about mathematical modelling of ‘wicked’ or complex problems? Formal modelling, such as mathematical modelling or computational modelling, is sometimes seen as reductionist, prescriptive and misleading. Whether it actually is depends on why and how modelling is used.

Continues in source: Why model? | Integration and Implementation Insights

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:16 am on August 20, 2019

7 lessons I’ve learnt consulting as a “complexity practitioner” | More Beyond

I’ve now been using a complex and emergent approach to consulting for around 17 years. A friend of mine read me his coaching “manifesto” recently including his…

Source: 7 lessons I’ve learnt consulting as a “complexity practitioner” | More Beyond

I need to be congruent with my message and approach
Every context is unique – I can’t assume I know what is going on or have any answers
It’s a partnership … don’t show up as the expert
I am not an objective outsider – I am part of the system
Don’t be afraid to challenge and hold up a mirror to the client
Meet the system where it is and follow the natural contours of the organisation where I can
Changing the system is not my responsibility

Worth reading

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:13 am on August 20, 2019

Improvisation Blog: Emerging Coherence of a New View of Physics at the Alternative Natural Philosophy Association

Source: Improvisation Blog: Emerging Coherence of a New View of Physics at the Alternative Natural Philosophy Association

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 1:14 am on August 16, 2019

Market systems resilience – a concept to reframe systemic change and sustainability? | Marcus Jenal

Source: Market systems resilience – a concept to reframe systemic change and sustainability? | Marcus Jenal

Market systems resilience – a concept to reframe systemic change and sustainability?

GA 264 | Repeating the Process of Learning with Dr. Jeffrey Liker — Gemba Academy Podcast: Lean Manufacturing | Lean Office | Six Sigma | Toyota Kata | Productivity | Leadership — Overcast

Jeff Liker talks about early implementations of lean and links with socio-technical and other systems work in organisations.

Gemba Academy Podcast: Lean Manufacturing | Lean Office | Six Sigma | Toyota Kata | Productivity | Leadership

264 | Repeating the Process of Learning with Dr. Jeffrey Liker

April 25, 2019

Website • Share link • Share link with timestamp

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:53 pm on August 15, 2019

Health Systems Research and Critical Systems Thinking: The case for partnership | Michael C. Jackson, Luis G. Sambo | 2019/08

On LinkedIn, Dr Mike Jackson OBE posted https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6567413123115032576/
“I remain fed up with the many people who, following on from Peter Senge, continue to reduce systems thinking (ST) to system dynamics (SD). In my recent book ‘Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity’ (Wiley, 2019) I detail ten ST approaches of which SD is only one. The paper I have just finished and put on Research Gate (co-authored with Luis Sambo) argues that the error of reducing ST to SD is also dangerous. It has held back the field of health systems research (HSR) and limited its capability to intervene successfully to help with the multi-dimensional wicked problems found in health systems. Critical Systems Thinking, it is suggested, can help liberate HSR from its shackles.”

David has here picked up some ‘choice comments’ from the article at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335146700_Health_systems_research_and_critical_systems_thinking_the_case_for_partnership?channel=doi&linkId=5d52ce4492851c93b62e4755&showFulltext=true

In brief. David Ing.

If we don’t first know “what is system is”, how do we approach an intervention? #MichaelCJackson OBE and Dr. #LuisGSambo appreciate the difference between “systems thinking” (plural) and “system dynamics” (singular), and suggest expanding theory with Critical #SystemThinking in Health Systems Research.

An ignorance of history is, if anything, even more pronounced among those authors in [Health Systems Research] influenced by complexity theory and the concept of ‘complex adaptive systems’. [….]
Most authors employing complexity theory in HSR seem to believe that it sprung forth fully formed from nothing or has somehow supplanted other bodies of work in systems thinking.
Such a poor appreciation of the history makes it almost inevitable that HSR will draw upon a restricted part of the systems and complexity tradition in developing its theories. In fact, it is the system dynamics and ‘complex adaptive systems’ strands that have come to dominate HSR at the expense…

View original post 194 more words

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 1:35 am on August 15, 2019

The Foundations of Holonomics 3: The Act of Distinction

Transition Consciousness

One of the most significant aspects of the Holonomics approach is the way in which dynamic systems are approached from multi perspectives in order to understand them in as complete a manner as possible. One of these ways of understanding systems is through phenomenology, which we will now explore in detail.

As Henri Bortoft explains in this lecture, phenomenology is not a form of introspection, it is a shift of attention from within experience. We can therefore think of phenomenology as a way in which we can expand and develop new ways of seeing.

Phenomenology was first developed by Edmund Husserl (1859 – 1938) who developed this philosophy at the turn of the twentieth century. At the time, many people began to understand that what he was doing was revolutionary. The problem is that in our current modern age it can now be difficult to read his original writings, and…

View original post 1,352 more words

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 5:03 am on August 14, 2019

Carol Sanford – Fourth and Fifth Levels of Systems Thinking / why feedback is irresponsible

This is offered by me under the category of ‘hmmmmm, I dunno….‘

I heard Sanford on the always-excellent Amiel Handelsman podcast:

No More Feedback With Carol Sanford (Episode 103)

Instinctively, I think there’s a lot to what she’s saying, but I’m not sure about the narrative, which I think might be wrong or confused. The historical timeline she sketches is that ‘feedback’, as in giving and receiving feedback, or 360 degree feedback, is a misunderstanding of the cybernetic governor, applied extrinsically rather than intrinsically. She draws a line through early behavioural analysis ‘in the rat-filled labs of John Watson at Princeton University and B. F. Skinner at Stanford’, to the Macy conferences where allegedly the concept was misinterpreted by the nascent science of psychology.

And then has a schema of closed systems – cybernetic systems – complex adaptive systems (NB Bateson gets swept up into this side of things) – developmental systems – evolutionary systems. She draws a lot on Charles Krone.

So I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, but some arguments and a strong developmental/teleological world view which I’m not comfortable with. Would value comments of others!

Providing feedback to peers, subordinates, and even superiors—particularly the 360 Degree view of performance appraisal—became popular as scientists and engineers began to understand how cybernetic systems work in computer applications. The creators of these artificial intelligence systems discovered that feedback loops are critical for correcting and adjusting the performance of control mechanisms, such as thermostats […]

Source: Why Feedback Is Irresponsible and What To Do Instead: Part One of Six – Carol Sanford

Forth and Fifth Levels of Systems Thinking: Different Capabilities Are Required, Different Potential Offered By Carol Sanford Originally published at Wharton School, International Conference on Systems Thinking and Management 2004, As a manager in DuPont who finally came face to face with the Freon nightmare, I can tell you that thinking too small about a […]

Source: Forth and Fifth Levels of Systems Thinking: Different Capabilities Are Required, Different Potential Offered – Regenerative Business Summit2

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 7:05 am on August 11, 2019

Architecting for Wicked Messes (OCADU 2018/03/07-09) – Coevolving Innovations

Source: Architecting for Wicked Messes (OCADU 2018/03/07-09) – Coevolving Innovations

Architecting for Wicked Messes (OCADU 2018/03/07-09)

August 10, 2019 daviding

0 Comments

Each year, my lecture in the “Understanding Systems & Systemic Design” course — in the program for the Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCAD University — reflects where my research is, at that point in time. For 2018, the scheduling of my visit was towards the end of a busy winter. Firstly, I had just finished teaching a Systems Methods course at the UToronto iSchool. Then, the Open Innovation Learning book was officially launched. Less than 6 months earlier, I had conducted a workshop at the Purplsoc 2017 meeting, and at the PLoP 2017 meeting. This shaped an agenda for the prepared slides as:

1. Designing for tame problems c.f. Architecting for wicked messes
2. Analyzing the complicated c.f. Synthesizing the complex
3. Unfreeze-change-freeze c.f. Co-responsive movement
4. Planning (teleology) c.f. Programming (teleonomy)
5. Industrial value chain c.f. Co-producing offeringContinues in source: Architecting for Wicked Messes (OCADU 2018/03/07-09) – Coevolving Innovations

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:18 am on August 11, 2019

2016/07/28 11:10 Len Troncale, “Systems Processes Theory (SPT) , and its prospects as a general theoretical core for a science of systems and sustainability”, ISSS 2016 Boulder

In brief. David Ing.

Plenary @ISSSMeeting Len Troncale, Keynote #isss2016USA, 60th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences and 1st Policy Congress of ISSS, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Day 4 theme: Systems Theory, Management, and Practice

Plenary VIII: Prospects for Scientific Systemic Synthesis

Description: Recent times have seen the emergence of new theoretical insights that may help to establish the frameworks, theories and methodologies we need to understand, design, build, explain, communicate about, utilize or operate, maintain, and evolve resilient and sustainable socio-ecological systems. In this panel we bring together experts to present on such emerging developments in the areas of engineering, science, research, practice and philosophy, and to reflect on how these different stands can contribute to the formation of a new systemic synthesis that will make the ‘whole systems perspective’ scientific and practical. The panel presentations will be delivered in the last plenary before lunch, and be followed by an…

View original post 299 more words

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 6:34 am on August 10, 2019

Science and complexity – Weaver, 1948 (classic paper introduction 2004)

Science and complexity.Warren WeaverPublished in American scientist 1948

DOI:10.1007/978-1-4899-0718-9_30

Source for reference: Science and complexity. – Semantic Scholar

Classic paper (pdf) https://fernandonogueiracosta.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/warren-weaver-science-and-complexity-1948.pdf

The above includes this 2004 introduction: https://journal.emergentpublications.com/article/science-and-complexity/

Science and complexity
Warren Weaver
Originally published as Weaver, W. (1948). “Science and complexity,” in American Scientist, 36: 536-544. Reproduced with permission. The Editors would also like to express their sincere thanks to Mia Smith of American
Scientist for providing a high quality digital scan of the original publication.
I
t is easy to get caught up in the excitement surrounding the study of complexity and how our
new learning might be applied to the problems we
face today. We often feel like pioneers in a new land,
making new discoveries. For those involved in charting such a course, it is easy to lose historical perspective and the path already taken by others. It is to these
earlier pioneers that the Classical Papers Section is
dedicated. Such a side trip to the archives can quickly
bring the reader a dose of reality, that some “new” ideas
are really only “rediscovered.” Similarly, our view of
the future can gain some perspective when reading
about earlier predictions of the future, what we now
call the present.
Reaching back almost 60 years, E:CO readers
are invited to read a classic article by Warren Weaver
(1894-1978). For historical setting, this article was pubOLVKHGVKRUWO\DIWHU:RUOG:DU,,DQGLVLQíXHQFHGE\
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for the war effort. During the war, Weaver headed the
Applied Mathematics Panel (AAAS, 2004), a position
that led to familiarity with many of the top scientists of
the era. It was a time of great advances in science and
optimism for more growth in the future. This article
was also written at the time Weaver was formulating
ideas that would later be published with Claude Shannon in The mathematical theory of communication,
which laid the foundation for information theory.
Weaver’s thoughts during this time on how computers
might be employed in machine translation were later
collected in his famous memorandum on the topic that
“formulated goals and methods before most people
had any idea of what computers might be capable of”
*ULIìQ
The optimistic attitude of the power of science
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Classical
tion that separates simple, few-variable problems from
the “disorganized complexity” of numerous-variable
problems suitable for probability analysis. The problems in the middle are “organized complexity” with a
moderate number of variables and interrelationships
that cannot be fully captured in probability statistics
QRUVXIìFLHQWO\UHGXFHGWRDVLPSOHIRUPXOD
The second part of the article addresses
how the study of organized complexity might be
approached. The answer is through harnessing the
power of computers and cross-discipline collaboration.
Weaver predicts:
“Some scientists will seek and develop for themselves
new kinds of collaborative arrangements; that these
groups will have members drawn from essentially all
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contribute greatly to the advance which the next half
EGPVWT[YKNNUWTGN[CEJKGXGKPJCPFNKPIVJGEQORNGZDWV
GUUGPVKCNN[QTICPKERTQDNGOUQHVJGDKQNQIKECNCPFUQEKCN
sciences.” (Weaver, 1948)
When reading this, there is a bit of déjà vu in
what we sometimes hear today of our study of complexity. So too in the statement that “science has, to
date, succeeded in solving a bewildering number of
relatively easy problems, whereas the hard problems,
and the ones which perhaps promise most for man’s
future, lie ahead” (Weaver, 1948). In the end the reader
LVOHIWZLWKFRQíLFWLQJIHHOLQJVRIVXUSULVHWKDWZHDUH
not further along in our understanding of complexity
given Weaver’s ideas nearly 60 years ago, while also
still being optimistic in our success for the same reasons
Weaver was optimistic.
Ross Wirth

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 11:44 am on August 9, 2019
Tags: 153

Making Sense Podcast #153 – Possible Minds | Sam Harris

As with every Sam Harris podcast, you might want to skip the first five minutes, and turn up the speed – but though this is positied as a conversation about AI, there is lots her (especially in the first interviews) about the origins of systems thinking / complexity / cybernetics.

Source: Making Sense Podcast #153 – Possible Minds | Sam Harris

#153 – POSSIBLE MINDS

Conversations with George Dyson, Alison Gopnik, and Stuart Russell

Play Episode

April 15, 2019

In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris introduces John Brockman’s new anthology, “Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI,” in conversation with three of its authors: George Dyson, Alison Gopnik, and Stuart Russell.

George Dyson is a historian of technology. He is also the author of Darwin Among the Machines and Turing’s Cathedral.

Alison Gopnik is a developmental psychologist at UC Berkeley and a leader in the field of children’s learning and development. Her books include The Philosophical Baby.

Stuart Russell is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley. He is the author of (with Peter Norvig) of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the most widely used textbook on AI.