Intelligent Business Systems

1
Intelligent Business Systems

• Dr. Sandra Moffett
• School of Computing and Intelligent Systems
• University of Ulster at Magee
• Tel [phone]
• E-Mail sm.moffett_at_ulster.ac.uk

2
Lecture 1The Learning Organisation
3
Learning Outcomes

• Review the evolution of Change Mechanisms
• Critically evaluate the concept of the Learning
  Organisation and Organisational Learning
• Develop an outline action plan to implement
  learning approaches within an organisation
• Assess the efficacy of adopting such approaches
  within an organisation

4
Environmental Progression

• Science and Technology
• Global Competition
• Changing Aspirations of the workforce
• Increasing educational aims of developing
  countries
• Decrease in the life expectancy of an industrial
  enterprise
• Reduction in cycle times

5
Evolution of Business Process Change

• Industrial Revolution (late 18th century) led to
  factories and managers who focused on
  organisation of manufacturing processes
• 1903 Henry Ford created new manufacturing
  process, revolutionised way automobiles were
  assembled
• Frederick Winslow Taylor Principles of
  Scientific Management argued for
  simplification, time studies, systematic
  experiementation to identify best way of
  performing tasks, and control systems that
  measured and rewarded output.
• New technologies lead to new business processes
  consider development of train and car, radio,
  telephone, television, computer

6
Systems Thinking

• Growing focus on systems began in 1980s
• Ludwig von Bertalanffy
• Jay W. Forrester
• John D. Sterman
• Peter M. Senge The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook
• Systems perspective emphasizes that everything is
  connected to everything else model business
  processes in terms of flows and feedback loops

7
Systems and Value Chains

• Groundwork laid by Michael Porter (1985)
  Competitive Advantage Creating and Sustaining
  Superior Performance
• Value Chain is a comprehensive collection of all
  of the activities that are performed to design,
  produce, market, deliver and support a produce
  line.
• Porters work led to concept of activity-based
  costing used to determine actual value of
  producing specific products

8
Business Process Value Chain
9
Evolution of Business Process Reengineering

• Movement began in 1990
• Hammer, M. (1990), Reengineering Work Dont
  Automate, Obliterate, Harvard Business Review,
  July/Aug
• Davenport, T. and Short, J. (1990), The New
  Industrial Engineering Information Technology
  and Business Process Redesign, Sloan Management
  Review, Summer Edn.
• Davenport, T. (1993), Process Innovation
  Reengineering Work through Information Technology
• Hammer, M. and Champy, J. (1993), Reengineering
  the Corporation A Manifesto for Business
  Revolution

10
BPR Objectives

• Organisations must think in terms of
  comprehensive processes
• Processes needed to be conceptualised as
  complete, comprehensive entities that stretched
  from initial order to the delivery of the product
• I.T. needed to be used to integrate these
  comprehensive processes

11
BPR Shortsighted

• Theorists underestimated difficulties of
  integrating corporate systems with I.T.
  technologies available at that time
• Failed to appreciate problems involved in scaling
  up some of the solutions they recommended
• People resisted major change
• Costs involved

12
Misuses of BPR

• Downsizing popular in mid-1990s
• Introduction of technology led managers whose
  primary function was to organise information from
  line activities and funnel to senior management
  to become redundant
• Employee distrust
• Business Process Improvement
• Business Process Redesign

13
Phases of Knowledge Transformation (Drucker, 1993)

• The Age of Enlightenment
• The Industrial Era
• The Knowledge Era

14
Knowledge about Knowledge

• Knowledge is now being applied to knowledge.
  This is the third and perhaps the ultimate step
  in the transformation of knowledge. Supplying
  knowledge to find out how existing knowledge can
  best be applied to produce results is, in effect,
  what we mean by management
• Drucker, 1993

15
Knowledge or Learning?

• we have entered the knowledge age and the new
  currency is learning - it is learning, not
  knowledge itself which is critical
• Dixon, 1999

16
Adam Smith vs Delia Smith

• we are moving into an economy where the
  greatest value is in the recipes, rather than the
  cakes
• Leadbetter, 2000

17
Intellectual Assets

• a companys value derives not from things, but
  from knowledge , know-how, intellectual assets,
  competencies, all of it embodied in people
• Hamel and Prahalad, 1996

18
Focus

• Efficiency
• Improving efficiency (closing gaps)
• Productivity
• Lower costs, higher revenues
• Short-term, operative

• Proficiency
• Culture shift (learning org)
• Processual
• Changes in behaviour attitudes
• Long-term, strategic

19
The Learning Organisation

• Where people continually expand their
  capability to create the results they truly
  desire, where new and expansive patterns of
  thinking are nurtured, where collective
  aspiration is set free, and where people are
  continually learning to learn together
• Senge, 1990

20
Disciplines of the Learning Organisation

• Systems Thinking
• Personal Mastery
• Mental Models
• Building Shared Vision
• Team Building

21
Learning Disabilities

• 1) I am in my position - a narrow focus on
  ones job rather than on the purpose of the whole
• 2) the enemy is out there - blaming others when
  things go wrong, not recognising that in here
  and out there are part of the same system

22
Learning Disabilities

• 3) The illusion of taking charge - the need to
  differentiate between being proactive and
  reactive
• 4) Fixation on events - focus on short-term
  events and not on slow gradual processes which
  are the real threat

23
Learning Disabilities

• 5) The parable of the boiled frog - the
  non-detection of slow gradual processes
• 6) The delusion of learning from experience -
  the impact of important decisions
• 7) The myth of the management team - cohesion
  versus conflict?

24
The Leaders Role

• Designer
• Steward
• Teacher
• (Refer to later material)

25
The Learning Company

• At present we know a lot about providing
  individual learning - albeit in a training mode
  but our knowledge of how to gather together the
  fruits of all this individual learning to enhance
  the generic problem of solving capacity of the
  organisation is rudimentary. The great challenge
  of the learning company is to learn how this can
  be done
• Pedler et al, 1988

26
Evolution of the Learning Company

• Stage 1 Surviving - companies that develop basic
  habits and processes and deal with problems as
  they arise
• Stage 2 Adapting - companies that continuously
  adapt their habits in light of accurate readings
  and forecast of environmental change
• Stage 3 Sustaining - companies which create
  their context as much as they are created by them

27
The Learning Company

• an organisation which facilitates the learning
  of all its members and continuously transforms
  itself
• Pedler et al, 1988
• an organisation that facilitates the learning
  of all its members and consciously transforms
  itself and its context
• Pedler et al, 1997

28
Members of the Learning Company Consortium

• Humberside TEC
• United Distillers
• TSB
• Digital
• Welsh Health
• Ernst Young (US)

• Rolls Royce
• Smith Kline Beecham
• British Rail Intercity
• Mid Essex Health
• Coopers and Lybrand
• Croydon Bus School

29
The Learning Company Framework

• Aspect
• Strategy
• Looking in (Internal Aspects)
• Structures
• Looking Out (External aspects)
• Learning Opportunities

• Elements
• 2
• 4
• 1
• 2
• 2

30
Learning Approach to Strategy

• This characteristic encompasses company policy
  and strategy formation which together with
  implementation, evaluation, and improvement are
  consciously structured as a learning process.
  Key features of this characteristic include the
  fact that strategy is openly challenged,
  discussed widely and that a problem solving
  approach is adopted

31
Participative Policy Making

• This refers to the sharing of involvement in the
  policy and strategy forming process. All
  employees have a chance to contribute to major
  policy decisions and thus the strategy reflects
  the view of everybody in the company

32
Informating

• This characteristic considers the way in which
  information technology is used to inform and
  empower people rather than disempower them.
  Emphasis is placed on the use of systems so that
  relevant information is available in a user
  friendly form for everybody

33
Formative Accounting and Control

• Part of information this has been given a
  separate specific characteristic because of the
  importance given to accounting and budgeting
  systems in most companies. Essentially financial
  systems should be easily understood and provide
  relevant information so that everybody is able to
  make appropriate business decisions

34
Internal Exchange

• This characteristic involves all the internal
  units and departments being regarded as customers
  and suppliers contracting and co-operating fully
  with one another in a partly regulated economy.

35
Reward Flexibility

• Within a learning company there may be
  alternative ways of rewarding individuals apart
  from financial reward. Emphasis in this
  characteristic is placed on recognising a job
  well done as well as openly discussing and
  sharing the principle behind the reward system,
  in whatever form, it takes.

36
Enabling Structures

• In an increasingly competitive environment rules
  and structures within an organisation should
  remain flexible so that rapid responses to
  demanding situations are possible. The rationale
  for this characteristic is to create an
  organisation which allows current needs to be met
  as well as catering for future changes. Employee
  development creativity and flexibility are also
  emphasised.

37
Boundary Workers as Environmental Scanners

• All members within a learning company will
  collect data from its external environment (i.e.
  all external customers, clients, suppliers,
  neighbours etc) so that all employees are
  providers of information. To allow the flow and
  exchange of this information throughout a company
  appropriate communication structures must be in
  place.

38
Inter-company Learning

• In this characteristic companies, whether in the
  same industrial sector or not get together for
  the purpose of mutual learning known as
  benchmarking. By doing this the companies
  interests will be met - e.g. by aiding in
  technological advance or establishing joint
  industry standards.

39
Learning Climate

• This characteristic emphasises the lack of a
  shame and blame culture. In keeping with this
  perspective one of a managers many tasks is to
  facilitate employees experimentation and to
  allow them to learn from their mistakes.
  Importance is attached to the idea of continuous
  improvement.

40
Self-development Opportunities for All

• Resources and facilities for self-development
  are made available for all employees of the
  company. With appropriate guidance people are
  encouraged to take responsibility for their own
  learning and development.

41
Fundamental Elements

• Importance of learning by individuals and
  companies
• Effective management and exchange of information
• Effective training and development of employees

42
The 11cs Questionnaire

• Current (How it is) scale
• Aspirational (How I would like it to be) scale
• Maximum Score (5x525)
• Minimum Score (1x55)

43
Dissatisfaction (Opportunity) Index

• 100x Aspired state - current state
  Aspired
  State
• Range Zero - no gap between the states
  100 - maximum
  gap between the states
• The higher the opportunity index the greater the
  amount of dissatisfaction with a particular
  characteristic

44
The EFQM Excellence Model

• This model has been redesigned to incorporate
  various elements including the recognition of
  the emerging importance being attached to the
  management of knowledge within organisations, the
  learning organisation culture, and innovation, as
  providing a key competitive advantage

45
The EFQM Excellence Model

• Enablers
• Leadership
• Policy Strategy
• People
• Partnerships Resources
• Processes

• Results
• Customer Results
• People Results
• Society Results
• Key performance Results

46
Enablers People

• How the organisation manages, develops and
  releases the knowledge and full potential of its
  people at an individual, team-based and
  organisation-wide level, and plans these
  activities in order to support its policy and
  strategy and the effective operation of its
  processes

47
People Results

• Do people enjoy working in the organisation?
• Is there a high level of loyalty amongst the
  organisations employees?
• What do trends in productivity, absence levels
  and staff turnover indicate?
• Are employees keen to be involved in trying to
  improve the business?

48
The ICL Experience

• A learning organisation harnesses the full
  brainpower, knowledge and experience available to
  it, in order to evolve continually for the
  benefit of all its stakeholders
• Lank and Mayo, 1990

49
Café VIK

• Global information service
• Serving people who work with ICLs customers
• Launched in November 1996
• New community architecture launched in 1999

50
Tutorial Task

• Search on-line for five good websites relating
  to the Learning Organisation list the URLs
• Provide three definitions of Learning
  Organisation or organisational learning