Guidelines - Description-"System"
Directions: Getting Started. Select a business or organization real or fictitious, use the cases or your own creativity. Describe it (see below) it can be highly technical or not, but it must use the basic business functions to some degree. At the end of your description there should be a problem(s), dysfunction(s), error(s), in the business/social system. I include social systems because now we have social media which operates as a business. From this exercise, you will develop Part I - Current System Narrative which repeats much of this, BUT focuses on problem(s), dysfunction(s), error(s), in the business/social system. Recommendations for improvement are NOT included in Part I. A thorough management analysis (gap analysis) is required.
Use:
What (product-service),
Where (location, cloud, etc.),
Why (does it exist, what function-purpose does it serve?),
When (does it work, do what it says it does?),
Who (clients, customers, B2B, etc.), and
How (major business functions).
Describe your "System" and use Churchman's System's Approach as a guideline as well (see below). At this level, we are very general. Try to stay around 2-3 pages. You may or may not include IT dys-function?
The minimal system In The Systems Approach (1968) Churchman outlines five basic considerations for thinking about the meaning of a system (TSA 29-30):
- the total system objectives and, more specifically, the performance measures of the whole system;
- the system's environment: the fixed constraints;
- the resources of the system;
- the components of the system, their activities, goals and measures of performance; and,
- the management of the system.
These aspects can be readily identified in the above concept map, which also shows key relationships between these aspects. What he doesn't mention is: (a) that the system's purpose should serve a group of clients or beneficiaries (but they are perhaps implied in the "system objectives"); and (b) that a plan may be designed to improve the working of the whole system (but that is perhaps implied in the notion of "resources").
Improving systems The whole point of thinking in systems is to model real systems in such a way that they can be improved. The model itself is also a system. It should in some way resemble the real system, but will never be more than an approximation. In addition to the real system and the model of the system there is also the inquiry system. The inquiry system (perhaps "learning model" would be a more appealing modern equivalent) uses the same basic elements ("learning categories") as the ones in the system model, but this time they are used in a process of comprehending reality, a process of "unfolding".
Unfolding the categories .... can be done in many ways. In a general way it is no more than using the categories as labels or concepts for formulating questions, contemplating them (alone or as a team), and finding answers that can help improve the system of interest. In The Systems Approach and its Enemies (1979) Churchman suggests that "one way to unfold any of the categories is to try to .... compare the "is" with the "ought". The search for the "is " usually leads to a map" (SAE 81). Examples are the benefit-cost map for the "client" category to trace out where the benefits and costs go, and influence maps for the "decision maker" or "planner" categories. Churchman's books on the systems approach are full of ingenious questions to help in unfolding the categories.
Back to our concept map The "purpose" category could be unfolded by asking what the real objectives of the system are, which may differ considerably from the stated objectives. This is an important distinction, since the purpose must be known to be able to asses the performance and thereby the improvement of the whole system: in fact, both, the performance of the whole system and of the system components (or programmes) must be justified in terms of the system purpose. So the key unfolding question is whether they are. And in the case of the programmes whether the resources devoted to them justify the resources put into their operation.