Ackoff Center Weblog

Towards A System of Systems Concepts

Russell L. Ackoff
Originally published in Management Science, Vol. 17, No. 11, July 1971

The concepts and terms commonly used to talk about systems have not themselves been organized into a system. An attempt to do so is made here. System and the most important types of system are defined so that differences and similarities are made explicit. Particular attention is given to that type of system of most interest to management scientists: organizations. The relationship between a system and its parts is considered and a proposition is put forward that all systems are either variety increasing or variety decreasing relative to the behavior of its parts.

To read this article, please download the pdf file: Download AckoffSystemOfSystems.pdf

From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking

Talk presented at "Systems Thinking in Action" conference - November 1993

Reprinted with permission of Pegasus Publishing -- http://www.pegasuscom.com/

Posted by popular demand, the transcript of Russell Ackoff's talk presented at the Systems Thinking in Action conference - November, 1993.

In this fascinating lecture, Ackoff states that we're in the early stages of a change of age - a period in which our world view is transforming from one theory of reality to another.

What happens to any age is the appearance of dilemmas - problems that challenge the validity of the current world view and cannot be solved within it. Such was the case during the Middle Ages - hence, the Renaissance. In our case, we are experiencing a shift from the Machine Age to the Systems Age. 

The Machine Age was characterized by belief in complete understandability of the universe, analysis as a method of inquiry, and cause and effect as a sufficient relationship to explain all.

The dilemma that disrupted such beliefs was systems thinking. The Machine Age began to die, Ackoff states, when we gave up the principle of understandability. Gradually, it's become accepted that there can be no complete understanding of the universe because nothing can be understood independently of its environment - all is environmentally relative. It began to be acknowledged that while analysis produces knowledge, it is synthesis that produces understanding. Furthermore, the Systems Age recognizes that cause and effect is just one way of looking at reality - there are an infinite number of ways.

To read this article, click on the link: From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking.

 

The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments

F.E. Emery and E.L. Trist, ‘The causal texture of organizational environments’, Human Relations vol.18 (1965), pp. 21-32. Reprinted with Permission

A main problem in the study of organization change is that the environmental contexts in which organizations exists are themselves changing, at an increasing rate, and towards increasing complexity. This point, in itself, scarcely needs labouring. Nevertheless, the characteristics of organisational environments demand consideration for their own sake, if there is to be an advancement of understanding in the behavioural sciences of a great deal that is taking place under the impact of technological change, especially at the present time. This paper is offered as a brief attempt to open up some of the problems, and stems from a belief that progress will be quicker if a certain extension can be made to current thinking about systems. In a general way it may be said that to think in terms of systems seems the most appropriate conceptual response so far available when the phenomena under study – at any level and in any domain – display the character of being organised, and when understanding the nature of the interdependencies constitutes the research task. In the behavioural sciences, the first steps in building a systems theory were taken in connection with the analysis of internal processes in organisms, or organisation, when the parts had to be related to the whole. Examples include the organismic biology of Jennings, Cannon, and Henderson; early Gestalt theory and its later derivatives such as balance theory; and the classical theories of social structure. Many of these problems at the social level. It will show how a greater degree of system-connectedness, of crucial relevance to the organization, many develop in the environment, which is yet not directly a function either of the organization’s own characteristics or of its immediate relations. Both of these, of course, once again become crucial when the response or the organization to what has been happening is considered.

To read this article, click on the link:  

Download 10.1177_001872676501800103.pdf

The Corporate Rain Dance

In this classic article, Ackoff discusses why most corporate strategic planning is like a ritual "rain dance," to which any rain that follows is attributed.

After reviewing the three basic types of planning (reactive, preactive, and interactive), he explains how idealized design can convert what is considered impossible into the possible. "Planning becomes a way of life, the essential activity in management, and everybody in the organization has an opportunity to contribute."

To read this article, click on the link: The Corporate Rain Dance

Management Misinformation Systems

In his classic article, "Management Misinformation Systems," Russell Ackoff explores the assumptions underlying most MIS (mis-) design - namely, that: managers lack enough relevant information for decision making; managers know what information they need, and seek it; providing a manager with the information he needs will improve his decision making; more communication means better performance; and that a manager need only understand how to use an MIS system, not how it works.

Refuting these myths, Ackoff proposes the filtration and condensation of information systems; promotes a macro view of the decision process; places emphasis on the goal of organizational performance above interdepartmental communication; and urges managers' control of the system, rather than the reverse.

In sum, Ackoff states that management information systems must be designed to be flexible and adaptive, and their design must be strongly influenced by the managers who will be using them.

"Reprinted by permission, Russell L. Ackoff, Management Misinformation Systems, Management Science, 14(4), 1967. Copyright, The Institute of Management Sciences, now the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, MD 21090 USA."

The Future of Operational Research is Past

In 1979, Russ Ackoff wrote a paper that was a milestone in management thinking. Published in the Journal of the Operational Research Society at the height of OR's influence, The Future of Operational Research is Past (pdf) indicted the ways that OR had come to be used by its many practitioners. Ackoff followed that paper with a more hopeful one, titled Resurrecting the Future of Operational Research (also pdf).