Craig Standing

1
Rich Picture Example

• In groups develop a rich picture to express how
  Singaporean/Honk Kong Companies can take
  (further) advantage of e-commerce opportunities.
  Cover the issues, problems and opportunities
  related to taking advantage of the opportunities.

2
Systems Thinking(Jackson)

• There is some debate in relation to business
  analysis methodologies
• Jackson for example labels
• Total Quality Management
• Business Process Re-engineering
• Learning organisation
• Guru theory
• Fads!

3
Systems Approach

• Systems approach is holistic
• Holistic solution looks at the entire problem
• Avoids breaking it up into components
• Systems interact and create emergent properties
• Can be a way of thinking- ontological
• Can be used to understand situations -
  epistemological

4
Progress in Management Science Systems Thinking
Increasing divergence of values/interests
Unitary
Pluralist
Conflictual
Simple
Soft OR/Systems
OR
Increasing Complexity
Design of Adaptive Systems
Problems more difficult to manage
?
Complex
5
History of Management Problem Solving

• Frederick Taylors Scientific Management pre
  1st WW as a problem solving methodology
• Operational research came into being in 1940s
• Then systems analysis and systems engineering
• Systems thinking

6

• Researchers on the horizontal axis emphasise the
  importance of values, beliefs and philosophies
• Their main concern is changing organisational
  culture and gaining commitment from participants
  to a course of action
• Moved from positivist to a interpretive approach
• Soft ORers and systems thinkers do not try to
  design models for repetitive use

7

• Reason? Due to individual nature of problems
• The methodology is replicated!
• Checkland, Flood and Jackson
• Jackson argues that steady progress has taken
  place in the development of management problem
  solving

8
Management Fads

• Guru Theory
• Peters Waterman In Search of Excellence -
  included Management by Walking About
• Heathrow (Changi) School of Management
• Follow based on faith rather argument
• Write in such a way that skips details
• They sell lots of books! Why?

9

• They tell stories
• Three kinds of Guru
• Academic Gurus
• Consultant Gurus - eg. de Bono, Peters
• Hero Managers - Iacocca
• Many contradictions from one book to another
• Customer is king
• Flexibility replaces customer is king
• Later it was something else
• Rationale?

10

• TQM - includes continuous quality improvement
  programmes
• drive defects out and designing quality in
• at all stages of the production process
• Required fundamental orientation to the customer
• Coordination of all stages of production to get
  conformance to requirements
• Included suppliers to get quality raw materials
  or products or services

11
TQM

• TQM programmes frequently fail according to
  surveys - no real impact
• Reasons - TQM focuses on customers at the expense
  of other stakeholders
• Some argue customers dont know what they want!
• Some believe employees are the most important
  stakeholders

12
BPR Learning Organisations

• BPR - another fad? We will look at this later?
• Learning organisation
• Peter Senge - The Fifth Discipline (1990)
• limited selection of systems ideas
• continually expanding its capacity to create its
  future
• means people have to keep learning

13
Learning Organisation

• Managers must master 5 disciplines
• Systems
• personal mastery
• mental models
• building shared vision
• team learning

14
Conclusions

• The point of systems thinking is to
• help us to work out the right course of action
  to take
• No real hope of a unified theory of systems
• Careful research (critical reflection) is
  required as opposed to fadism

15
Questions

• Do you agree with Jacksons view (fads) of
• Guru Theory
• TQM
• Learning organisations
• Why does he uphold the credibility of systems
  thinking?
• Where does systems theory beat the fads?
• What faults can you find with his argument?

16
Questions

• Does systems thinking as an approach have much to
  offer business analysis?
• What?
• Is the success of systems thinking dependent on
  the cultural context?