The Ackoff Center Weblog provides an opportunity to keep up with the latest research in Systems Thinking. It is also a forum where you can interact with others in the field and share your own experiences.
January 30, 2020
How to Select Scrum Patterns
Systems Thinking
How do you design a house? Ackoff explains The architect designs to satisfy the needs of the residents, and first draws the house ( the Whole). Then divides the house into rooms ( the parts ). A room is only improved if it also improves the house, and it can be the case that the architect chooses to make a room worse to improve the house as a whole. So, you start with determining the function of the larger Whole, and then improve the Whole by refining it with parts.
We apply the same approach with the Scrum Patterns. You start with the most extensive pattern( the Whole) and then refine it with subsequent patterns. You are always keeping in mind the goals of the Whole.
You might be thinking, so what? Well, it is crucial to understand the boundaries of your system and the goal you are striving to improve, because you are unlikely to improve the performance of the Whole by improving the parts taken separately— R. L. Ackoff, Re-Creating the Corporation, page 21. Let me try to explain using a simple example.
Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) was an important early proponent of the field of operations research, and remained a tireless advocate for an expansive vision of what the field could be. Ackoff was a founding member of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA), and served the organization as its fifth president. Ackoff was also an author of Introduction to Operations Research (1957), the field’s first textbook written as such. Throughout his time in OR, Ackoff insisted on working on practical problems of management, and maintained ongoing relationships with a number of clients, including Anheuser-Busch, which he collaborated with for decades. Ackoff resisted the confinement of his work to any particular methodology, and remained deeply concerned with problems of ethics and social responsibility. Because OR had become increasingly defined by its mathematical methdology, Ackoff became disillusioned with the subject, and turned instead to what he called Social Systems Science. In the 1970s he would sever his relationship with OR altogether, declaring the field dead.
Through the cooperation of Bill Bellows, John Pourdehnad and the Ackoff family, we are pleased to offer these videos for your viewing.
2003 Ackoff Seminar At Huntington Beach - 4 Videos
2004 A Day with Russell Ackoff - 5 Videos
2005 A Day with Russell Ackoff - 3 Videos
2006 Fourth Annual Lecture by Russell Ackoff - 2 Videos
Schools must steer away from 'one size fits all' approach
The late business guru, Russell Ackoff, famously said, “It’s better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right.”
At a time when many districts seem to be focused on doing the wrong thing right by working to raise test scores to the exclusion of anything else, we’re taking a different approach at Anaheim Union High School District — building a bridge to the future so that students can achieve their unique potential based on their passions and talents. We called it the “Unlimited You.”
Michael Matsuda
We live in a time when economists predict some 65 percent of the jobs that current K-12 students will hold haven’t yet been invented. Locally, economist Wallace Walrod of the Orange County Business Council has warned that Orange County will need to better prepare a pipeline of talent to backfill over 100,000 white collar jobs lost to retirement with what he calls “new collar” jobs.
Russell L. Ackoff, author of “Redesigning the Future,” once said “The only thing that’s harder than starting something new, is stopping something old.” This is true of education practices that no longer work or never really worked effectively. Teachers sometimes become very skilled at ineffective practices and find them hard to let go. As Ackoff also noted, “The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It is much better to do the right thing wronger than the wrong thing righter. If you do the right thing wrong and correct it, you get better.”
Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) was an important early proponent of the field of operations research, and remained a tireless advocate for an expansive vision of what the field could be. Ackoff was a founding member of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA), and served the organization as its fifth president. Ackoff was also an author of Introduction to Operations Research (1957), the field’s first textbook written as such. Throughout his time in OR, Ackoff insisted on working on practical problems of management, and maintained ongoing relationships with a number of clients, including Anheuser-Busch, which he collaborated with for decades. Ackoff resisted the confinement of his work to any particular methodology, and remained deeply concerned with problems of ethics and social responsibility. Because OR had become increasingly defined by its mathematical methdology, Ackoff became disillusioned with the subject, and turned instead to what he called Social Systems Science. In the 1970s he would sever his relationship with OR altogether, declaring the field dead.
Through the cooperation of Bill Bellows, John Pourdehnad and the Ackoff family, we are pleased to offer these videos for your viewing.
Dear All, I am writing this invitation to request your participation in the newly founded PhD program in Action Research to be housed in the School of Management of Sabancı University. This is going to be managed by a newly founded chair that I was appointed to this year entitled “Arama Chair in Action Research”. Arama is the “participatory management consulting” company that I founded some 25 or so years ago in Turkey that has worked with well over 1000 institutions of all types including large corporations, National and International Agencies, Ministeries, NGOs, Universities, and Municipal entities mainly in Turkey but also in countries such as USA, Italy, Russia, Norway, UAE, Australia and Pakistan. Sabanci University is the result of an action research engagement that has been collaboratively designed by Arama and extended group of stakeholder and have entered into the 20th Year of serving as a unique model. The University has been ranked no 1 consecutively for the last 6 years on the most innovative and entrepreneurial University index administered by the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology. The Action Research PhD program is conceived as an “industrial PhD” aimed at promising mid career professionals who will co-produce relevant and useful knowledge pertaining to different forms of transformation of organizations, industries and networks. This PhD therefore will serve to understand and to transformation the past, present and the future of the constituent social system as well as serving in the formation of leaders in sponsoring institutions. Each year we will aim to bring on board about 10+ doctoral students who will take 5 required and 4 elected courses as well as pursuing a dissertation topic pertaining to some kind of transformation prefably in their own institutions.
There are several roles for participating faculty: A main role can be offering and conducting a course-that may be arranged with flexible scheduling yet to be held in one of the three semesters: Fall, Spring or Summer. Another role could be to take a supervisory and/or an examiner role or to participate in action research projects in some relevant capacity. We plan to hold annual conferences to bring the extended community together every year in the summer at different appealing parts of Turkey depending on the funding possibilities. Participation only but hopefully regularly at these annual get-togethers may be another role. Once you express an interest we will consider you a network faculty who can participate in one of the above capacities. You do not have to indicate the role now but it would be highly desirable if you indicate an interest ASAP. There will be a modest honorarium plus expenses that would be different for different roles. We would like to start with the first cohort in september or january of next year by the latest and would like to include your name under network faculty. I sincerely hope to see you all in this social experiment to continue co-creating and facilitating the knowledge production efforts. As such we can bring about another hub of action research in a world that is in need of more and more hubs of symbiotically uniting action and research. Look forward to your response. Best wishes Oğuz Babüroğlu Arama Chair in Action Research Sabanci University İstanbul Turkey
THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY, Alumni Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
July 26 – 28, 2019
Russ Ackoff: The Vincent Van Gogh of Management? Under-appreciated during his lifetime but recognized after his death as a leader and prophet. What evidence do we have?
