Assignment:
Part:1
Throughout this course, you will be engaged in a Final Project on systems with applications. You will develop a detailed Consultancy Report for an organization of your choice. Your final report will include both systems models and relevant research on systems theory, as well as leadership and management theory. Your Final Project will help evaluate the systems thinking within your selected organization and improve the understanding and decision making within it.
The executive leadership of an organization has hired your firm to work with them; largely for your firm's ability to support recommendations made with current research on systems and leadership management and theory. The client would like your firm to model and describe their organization based on recent developments in both systems and leadership management and theory.
The notion of tipping points is related to systems as that point in which a system changes from one state to another. While there is a mathematical description for a tipping point, it is out of scope for this class. Instead, consider a tipping point as simply a break from the current state of a system to a new state. For example, if a company were to be acquired by another company, it would experience a tipping point. If a company were to radically downscale, then it would experience another tipping point. Tipping points are a common feature of systems, such as ecological systems, climate systems, insect colonies, and human social systems.
Please include the following in 2 to 3 pages:
• Using the PowerPoint template, model the following for your organization (this model will be inserted as a figure into your Final Project Template or attached as a separate file, which is likely the best option as the number of slides increases):
o Inputs (information, materials, and energy)
o Top-level organizational process
o Outputs (information, materials, and energy)
o Two or more thresholds or tipping points beyond which the organization would become unrecognizable
• Explain the organization in detail to interpret your model.
• Explain how general systems theory and Boulding's hierarchy of systems might inform the executive leaderships' understanding of its organization's and leadership/management's thinking.
• Include at least two citations/references to current literature to support your rationale to the executive leadership.
Boulding (1956) described in his writings on general systems theory that systems can be viewed as having levels of complexity, depending on perspective
Part:2
Please include the following in 2 to 3 pages:
• Evaluate at least three stocks and associated flows in your selected organization.
• Evaluate at least one positive feedback loop in your selected organization.
• Evaluate at least two examples of how understanding stocks, flows, and feedback loops might improve decision making within the organization.
• Include at least two citations/references to current literature to support your explanations to the executive leadership.