SIG on Systems applications to business and industryISSS Meeting at Asilomar, June 28-July 2, 1999
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 Ian Simmonds at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center ( http://www.research.ibm.com ).The SIG was structured by the chair -- Enrique Herrscher -- based upon his synthesis and comparisson of three papers, as summarized in the following table. Then, the authors presented there papers in a "round robin", each taking their turn in presenting their viewpoint on each successive row in the table.
Enrique: Start with discussing the "key question:" Elizabeth White: the critical information that Wang couldn't take in was information about his customers. David Hawk: Now customers are not so passive -- how do universities teach you to deal with that? David Ing: table only summarizes some of our paper. Traditionally businesses operate as predict-and-plan, but can't operate like that in an era of unpredictable and discontinuous change. How to you handle empowerment? Enrique: Now comments on the critical questions. Elizabeth: my model is more of a generic map, showing where these things might fit, since they are typically not conceived of systemically. For example, employees say "who needs best practices?" David Hawk: The critical statement seems separate from the question. But it isn't. If you look at business history, you see a period of specialization and division of labor. Next period is management integrating the parts -- nice position for managers. But doesn't work, so need to pay managers more to do it. But that annoys employees, and leads to higher overhead costs. Babbage: the most important principle is "obey the rules" followed by "know the rules". But people no longer believe that. David Ing: If you can forecast, then you can/should predict-and-plan / command-and-control. But can't do that in discontinuous, unpredictable change. But what is the role of leadership? It's to provide organizational context, which leads to context-and-coordination. Henrique: now key systemic definitions: Elizabeth: Customer and market are co-created, so we have much of business backwards. Thus we need to take a more epistemological approach, and to exploit the potential generative productivity that is not exploited in a mechanistic conception of enterprise. Need to unleash a social system as a whole, spanning enterprise boundaries. David Hawk: Smith, Babbage focus on functional categories has been attacked by systems theorists, who say that you need to focus on the relationships. But you need to go further to look to the impact on the environment, which brings context into the discourse with avengence. Takes different approach than IS or MIS ... David Ing: We're discussing the design of an enterprise as a social system. How do you design as a system? Various categories - purpose of the whole, primary constituencies (e.g., customer of the customer (for business to business)). Distinction between primary purpose / stakeholder, and bounds. Other key ideas: capabilities. Key concern is coherency of response. What appears in our paper is an idea of layers of change, with purpose changing most slowly. Enrique: now for the key recommendations: Elizabeth: agrees with the others, but focusses on the generative forces. Example of Dell vs Compaq, with Dell doing better in 1Q99 because they are direct to the customer. With advances in technology, setting up organization along the generative information flow, from customer back to the organization, and let the rest fall away. Thinking of it as a human system, focusing on how information flows through the system iteratively, incrementally. David Hawk: We've increasingly noticed that problems are becoming distributed. So responses need to be more distributed. There are three problems in the paper. For example: can you change an industry without regulation? based upon Hawk's 20 year ago dissertation stating that Environmental Protection Agency should be dismantled. Then, worked on a project with one of the worse polluting industries. Q. Can you get them to improve to 30% better than required without subsidy or regulation? How can you distribute responsibility for doing this and other things? Ian Simmonds: We should look at Jane Jacobs work on economics, which is more compatible with what we're saying than classical economics. David Ing: Recommendations start with work of Allan Scherr on process as being both procedure and accountability. Adaptability comes from empowered accountability, which implies a reduction in procedure. The issue of designing in shearing layers is about making sure that the right kinds of contexts change at the right rates. For example, overall purpose cannot change more quickly than the set of outcomes committed to be individuals. Enrique: What needs to change? Need to look at organization as a whole, its parts, and also its context. Sander Rubin: Hasn't read the papers. Interested in David Hawk's companies, to see the circumstances to see where the ideas happened.
Jaak Tepandi (Estonia): organization as a single system connected to an environment. As an IS auditor, many organizations are asking where (and whether) the information systems function should be within the organization.
Enrique: The word "improvement' is a big limitation, while change is the real undercurrent. Ian Simmonds: Response to Gary: inventiveness within the commercial (as opposed to guardian) moral syndrome. Jane Jacobs "Systems of Survival". Sylvia Brown: suggestion after the break -- explore the givens that we've been assuming in the discussion, versus the unknowns. Brian : interested in the moral overtones. exchange is based upon trust, while it does not work in . There's empirical evidence in the UK that high morality leads to enterprise success
Enrique -- what do you think about the process for this session? Side discussion about heterarchy. The issue is about multiple sources of power. Heterarchy is some way between Hierarchy and Anarchy. Second half of session -- free form!What can/should be done?
What can be done ... for what? Sylvia Brown: The myth of "strong" leadership:
Minna: Elizabeth's "riding the hurricane" metaphor was strong but simple. Enrique: What can we learn from Senge, who is a successful popularizer? Enrique: Need patrons, like there were in the Renaissance. Enrique: Very difficult to promote change without a hierarchy within the organization. Brian Hilton: There are very insecure people who have a need for power. When they get into power, other more conscientious people have to clean up after them. Enrique: Interesting that there are no journalists here (in Asilomar as a whole!). Enrique: We have a home page ... but only people who are convinced already will come looking. Yoshi -- this is where public relations come in, so we need to sell what we have. Mikka -- much more make-and-sell than sense-and-respond.
Eduardo: propose that we seed these concepts in kids. How about teaching to kids, through a comic.
Web page research Ian: What about the Long Now Foundation? Brian Hilton: May be we have excessive expectations about what can be achieved. Perhaps we can lower our expectations, and see ourselves as successful. Sylvia Brown: We should collect examples of the "natural" systemic behavior (of children) Enrique: let's focus on the "us" column. What can we do?
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