Systems Applications in Business and Industry

• Paper session, June 30, 1999, 1:45 p.m., hosted by Enrique Herrscher 

These participant's notes were created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker's presentation(s) and comments from the audience. These should not be viewed as official transcripts of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. These notes have been contributed by Joe Arteaga (jarteaga@ca.ibm.com) at IBM Global Services in Canada ( http://www.can.ibm.com/services/index.html ).

Enrique Herrscher: 

• The SIG is an experiment and if you agree it's not appropriate - I will never do it again. 

• For this purpose I will register what you say, I would like to make a collective paper out of this. 

• Good Afternoon, we would like to do something which is not necessarily done, the presenters will present together rather than sequentially. 

• How can we research the corp in a very similar way. What are the three main questions, they are different but very comparable. Tomorrow we will have the traditional paper presentation. They are different, not a common area of thought. 

• We will begin with the presenters, and then include the audience to discuss the common areas. 

• I think the Authors address a key question, in some cases the key questions are different but they are really the same. 

• I was impressed with this insight. The critical factor was that Dr. Wang could not get from his employees what was needed to be successful, and he went bankrupt 

• The notion whis is kicked out is what we intended- we cannot do what we did post world 2, cannot just make and then hope someone will buy it. Now it is more interesting, we help universities figure out how to make more interesting propositions. 

• The we say you do is based on the premise from the AE book . The book says we cannot make Command and Control decisions in a discontinuous change era. The class is based on two areas- SIDA, Context and coordination 

• Elizabeth White- ..riding a hurricane- cannot control. 

• David Hawk-Regulation vs. command and control, 

• David and Ian- quality and reengineering are quick fixes- 

• my model is more of a generic map- it shows where things fit. Quality is not tied to that whole system process. Employees have not been understood systemically 

• the lineage of ind. devp- A Smith- Babbage- Taylor- is about division of labour, parts it is the onus of mgmt to understand how the parts relate- if it is not working - you have to put a lot more into it- pay them more and it still does not work. When you have customers that are finicky- it creates a high overhead cost, does not allow profitability. Babbage - make the rules, know the rules 

• we discuss in sense and respond command and control where you can predict, where you can't like in the networked economy. The role of leadership is to set the context where the ind are empowered within the purpose and bounds. The challenge is to discuss it with exec as a social system 

• next section is systemic view comes to life, 

• E- a human system not a system with human resources, 

• David Hawk - ind ecology sustainable practices are system practices, 

• D& Ian - purpose bounds, roles and coherency and response 

• I feel resonance with the other ways or aspects. For me the biggest issue in org work is that generally we have it backwards, we are looking at org, cust are one part- I look at it from a epistemological base like the bee and the flower model- The whole thing must be seen as a system, it is diff from a machine like a computer. As humans we hold out our ideas, there is a lot of generative energy lost. depending on if I wan to sabotage 

• system thinkers say functional categories need to be interrelated. but they have continued to be not like that- we are articulating a thesis- a particular are in env. which can't be done cheaply. Like coca cola - context and discourse is different than the func categories allow 

• in design an enter as a system, there are various categories- we start with purpose- define a main constituent- the primary constituent is typically a cust of cust or a shareholder- must choose one the rest are constraints- then you optimize on the others, purpose, guiding principles, capabilities are resources or assets that are avail in the enterprise. If you are a sense and respond you don't build things till the customer requests it. In this world you can't just build it instantly so you put capabilities in place. You should set up a purpose and bounds layers with commitments in the end. 

• the next section is 'what is to be done. 

• EW- to capture and enhance the customer's 

• D&M - to include awareness of legal and values of cust 

• D&I- main recommendation is to shift from activities to outcomes- c& control to C& Coordination 

• I agree with the other statements- they are more specific- mine is generic- the force of riding the hurricane- the generative force of the Internet age- to think in this hurricane idea- they need the best information- my view is with the adv, in tech the generative force of information flow- through the corporation setting up a better env. 

• This cat what makes the most sense- problems are becoming distributed- perhaps the responses need to be distributed as well. Three examples- particular industry- research US EPA could an ind be changed without regulation- based on my dissertation 20 years ago that - got to work on worst industry for the ind- they had proposed regulations but wanted not to use them but also get 30% better than with the regulations. Another arena- training of execs and mgrs. how do you prepare people to delegate responsibility- how to train people - like members of congress- what we do with them is to perturb them, the effort is to disturb them change their ideas- to turn them into sniveling people- The third is Helsinki Finland- exec to deal with ambiguity- how they are different- Helping and dealing with ambiguity 

• strikes me that Jane Jacob's- has proposed a diff way economics and cities- She concludes that the perfect unit for economy is a city not the state. 

• the challenge to define an adaptive enterprise- Alan Scherr- process- procedure & accountability- The issue with bpr is.. shift from procedure to outcomes- in trying to decouple we have hier we focus on outcomes not ends- reduce the accountability. IN our paper - to have coherency -the outcomes cannot change faster than the organization 

• what should be done now and comments- That is to see the tension between what should change in the org, and how should we change as persons in the org. Where is the locus of change, the change of people is imp. If Freud was here he would say you agree but you still control. Let's look at the org as a whole and it's parts, and the specific part of people, humans- diff than resources. 

• look at the env. as well 

• context is needed- close the doors and windows- globalization- what are the comments of what you heard 

• I have not read papers- disconnection because of generality- what were the circumstance of the people- D Hawk can you expand- 

• EPA Energy Star program- building lights computers- effort was to take it to the home building industry. 50000 companies work in this ind. 

• you still needed a gov body 

• EPA was a s little as possible involved- if a builder reached a level - they would get a star - they created a private industry for this over 3 years 

• change can happen- making change as regulation - successes and failures- depends on areas and countries and how you do it- the balance is more on the failures than the successes- not the selection of change but how you do it- Argentina is a great laboratory- most privatization in least time- lot of failures - the univ- formed a body owned by the 300 major corporations. 

• information sys auditor- does IT fulfill the org needs- what are all the information functions. This function can be internal or external function- serving the customers. 

• one of the big themes is Churchman's Inquiring systems- there are several areas which are key-value for cust, value for the empl, value of the information systems- trying to dissolve the boundaries- the practices of inf commissioning- there is a systemic change we are looking at. 

• the information system that supports make and sell is product oriented- if the primary constituency is external then you have to focus on the customer- Rashi Glazer - not only the customers today but also the future customers- keep what they want 

• relations between IS and public relations 

• SIDA- as you loop- the flow is different - 

• are you introducing a model of the customer?- the customer is part of the env- do you want to envelop the customer 

• inf only supports the customer- SIDA, S is categorized to , I interpret- machine some human, D- human 

• all information is framed within a framework - the long range relationship, the conversations are important, the customer is most important. 

• I can find a lik to the information issue- what information gets transmitted- there is still a motivation to maximize productivity- resources are used up and depletes human resources. IN the educational system there is talk to impose the corporate model. 

• Ackoff- hope that the primary constituency is not the shareholder, those more enlightened will choose the customer. 

• more radical position, the area of economics is an interesting - Pierre Bourdieu's work on economics- human social and other capital- we can refocus on all areas of value and exchange- 

• what was promoted by Vangi and Troncale- and at ISSS, years ago at Philadelphia - .. Smith a lady who presented an I culture for Information and a G culture- G for goods. It began thousands of years ago- our predecessors needed food- the I age- as you are in the move- good were no good. Then the inventory appeared- the more goods the more powerful- In the I age men and women were equal. We are turning to the 2nd age of information. We are in a hurricane, in a transition. In another manifestation- we should not speak of capitalism anymore- it is only information now. The key is not capital but information. Prior VP of planning for Shell said we should not focus on capital not Karl Marx. Lets not despair, what we see is much more complicated, it is a turmoil. 

• Garret Harding's famous paper should be included here. 

• work on evolution of Cooperation- there is a need for some compulsion to keep the people in the game or they cheat. 

• primary constituency- games with cust- vs. games against competitors 

• the role of companies- the theory of the firm- the whole issue of responsibility- wisdom is in society not in the organism- you cannot know how to act responsibly from birth- you need companies to ensure you can have enough mass to ensure the wisdom. 

• some years ago I was asked to give a lecture to define future business leaders- 1st indicator- no one is following them. the world of the insane- no one is following, management world- Dunlap- we pretend that's ok. Troncale the hierarchy must continue- alternatives to hierarchy- audiences was not happy. We can find models where hier is not true- two govs- one said we know how to doit- another says we do not know- do your best. Its perception vs. reality. 

• we all have to ask these ?'s in a larger context- where are we going in the future- what are the next generations going to think of this. 

• some days I'm an optimist- others pessimist- some are born into privilege- on the optimistic side is that the papers- the language is by itself optimistic. Studied Orgs, conclusion- there is ownership by some the few- the laws support them- on the other hand - there are org which I enjoyed, others not. Let's look at ourselves and be flexible to stay or not in an org. 

• The discussions on org seems to be so across the board- any agreement seems to be less apparent. We use every new metaphor, fundamental new set of paradoxes. 

• I have a vision of this carpet, on this carpet is what is happening- we should make the best of it. Where you work, teach and act in these matters in the sense and level that the discussion and three papers have been proposed- Let's discuss improvement or maybe change. Under the carpet are questions whether the corp should exist, people hunger, unemployment. 

• Jane Jacob's- systems of survival- systemic corruption- moral precepts at work- conclusion- fundamentally only two moral syndrome - 1- guardian/taken- traditional, gov deals with these, 2- trade- exchange- companies- creating value. You must have these in balance- corruption comes from precepts from one intercepted in the other- Innovation in government creates corruption. 

• trade is not a safeguard against power or corruption 

• monstrous hybrids- balanced syndromes take a long time- where there is corruption the two have not separated. 

• key element of the exchange is trust- there is a morality. State tries to be fair, the private world cannot be fair. Tomorrow's company- measure of empirical evidence- that those companies that have high morality- 2-3% have higher return for the shareholder.  

Return to ISSS home page.

This page was last modified by David Ing on October 6, 2002.