Andrea Magnorsky š¹ š¦A team is a system š
Trond Hjorteland@roundcrisis I tried to claim this too but was sternly corrected by Merrelyn Emery. A team is a part of a larger system, the organisation. Off course, if the the team is the org, then it is a system.
Dawn Ahukanna@trondhjort @roundcrisis
Curious Q: what's in-between an individual and the organizational system, if a team is not a system?
Curious Q: what's in-between an individual and the organizational system, if a team is not a system?
@dahukanna @roundcrisis Both the teams and the individuals are parts of the system that is the org. Treating them like systems in their own rights, in this context, will lead to problems.
@dahukanna @roundcrisis Mind you, this is probably based on open systems thinking, where all systems has an environment. Ackoff used containing systems, which can be argued as closed, and there there is a nested hierarchy. Not sure if the teams would be a system in that framing, or parts. Still think the latter as teams are interconnected and then parts of something bigger.
I maybe missing some context cos of federation not showing all related messages, I can only see previous 2 before my question: Are you saying the socio-technical system in focus is the Organisation?
Because:
1. Organisations are part of wider society.
2. Individuals are made up of biological systems e.g. endocrine, circulatory,etc that affect individuals and proximal people.
@dahukanna @roundcrisis The sociotechnical systems is an joint optimisation of the technical and the social aspects of a system. And the teams are the ones doing that. All parts of the system that is the org. It's all about framing as I see it and seeing the teams as one isolated system will not be suitable as you will miss the interconnection with the other parts and their joint relation to the whole.
@dahukanna @roundcrisis The two examples are what Ackoff often did, framing it as a nested hierarchy. This is a closed systems model. The open ones conceptualise the environment as well, which all systems then have.
@trondhjort @roundcrisis thanks for clarification.
Containment (encapsulation abstraction) ā open system, if the container is not the environment.
Closed systems can contain other closed systems.
@dahukanna @roundcrisis Yes, and that can be a useful model too. But closing a system will limit it as it most likely is an open system really. I've seen arguments made that there are no closed system in nature and although we try, we have not been able to create one either. Closest is probably the space station. āŗļø
@trondhjort @roundcrisis Interesting. I'm gonna noodle on that comment.
Is a laboratory an approximation of a closed system?
@dahukanna @roundcrisis We try, for sure, but do we manage it? Having a setting where no matter or energy is transferred? Or, even where we can disconnect ourselves completely? Closed systems are not a good approximation in many cases. Even in natural sciences where we have law that are not really applicable anywhere.
Ackoff is always a good source for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGN5DBpW93g
Russell L Ackoff From Mechanistic to Systemic thinking
@trondhjort I agree that any grounded/real world system is an open system - intermingled and intertwined. Closed system abstraction can be useful as a simplified and scoped starting point for modelling, not a definitive reference.
As George E.P. Box says, " Essentially, all models are wrong (inaccurate) but some are useful".
As George E.P. Box says, " Essentially, all models are wrong (inaccurate) but some are useful".
@dahukanna Absolutely. Simply thinking in systems is doing that, or modularity in IT. Very useful, but find that we often then seem to forget the huge simplification we make doing that, even as systems thinkers. By taking the open systems approach this will be front and center.
Ruth ā of systems & design@trondhjort @dahukanna is there something to point to where M Emery describes open and closed systems in such a way that open systems canāt be part of open systems ā only environments (that are not systems)? (Iām sure you know exactly which of her papers would be good to read on this!) Be interesting to contrast with others in the systems space. :)
@RuthMalan @dahukanna One I keep coming back to is the Vienna briefing paper: https://www.bcsss.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Vienna.OPEN-OR-CLOSED-SYSTEMS.pdf
The environment is by definition not a system. It is formed by the systems it is the environment for, but it is a different thing.
The environment is by definition not a system. It is formed by the systems it is the environment for, but it is a different thing.
@trondhjort @dahukanna yep. And itās (informed) choices about how things are viewed.
@RuthMalan @dahukanna Indeed. Kinda surprised how little prevalent open systems thinking is. Not necessarily the Emerys' way, but in general. the environment is frequently ignored, or at best acknowledged but not conceptualized.
@trondhjort @dahukanna itās quite prevalent. See for example (in the paper we read for yesterdayās systems discussion: http://documentacion.ideam.gov.co/openbiblio/bvirtual/017931/DocumentosIndicadores/Temasvarios/Docum8.pdf)
@RuthMalan @dahukanna Looks interesting. Hope you are right about the prevalence, but haven't seen it often myself. And OST is marginalized because of it.
@trondhjort @dahukanna maybe OST is marginalized for other reasons? Like, just one thought: the use of dp1 and dp2. It assumes folk have acquired a special purpose languageā¦ itās an important short-cut within a group. I get that. But for new peopleā¦
@RuthMalan @dahukanna The lingo in any field of science feels a bit excluding to outsiders I guess, same here. And yes, it is something that needs to be adjusted, Just easier to write DP1 and DP2 instead of writing out what it is each time. š
me@trondhjort @RuthMalan @dahukanna
Hence systems are not āpure fractalā? Meaning they show self-similarity on different scales?
@me @dahukanna @RuthMalan Not sure what you mean here. Fractal is similarity at scales, no? What do you then mean by not pure fractal?
@trondhjort @dahukanna @RuthMalan
If systems act as a component in a bigger system acting as a component in an even bigger system at what point it does become ā¦ āEnvironmentā instead of ājust a bigger system with more componentsā?
Or does system define something relatively autonomous or ā by itselfā and āenvironmentā is more like an aggregate of āall surrounding systemsā?
This is obviously not my topic of expertise btw š
@me @dahukanna @RuthMalan Ah, gotcha. Well the argument made there is what open systems theorists make against thinking "trutles all the way down" - or up. And your second paragraph comes close to how open system are thought of, as defined by the boundary that you draw and the environment that you identify for it. As Anygal said, you cannot separate them.
@trondhjort @me @dahukanna eh. Thereās turf stuff that happens andā¦ Some open systems folk may work with notions of system in environment on one hand, and ecologies of interacting systems on another.
@RuthMalan @me @dahukanna Like to see it as different ways of framing things and finding one that suites you in a particular situations. Closed or open for example. And, yes systems do interact, but in OST the environment is still accounted for.
@me @dahukanna @RuthMalan āThe biosphere includes both the individual and the environment, not as interacting parts, not as constituents which have independent existence, but as aspects of a single reality which can be separated only by abstraction.ā -Andras Angyal, 1941
@RuthMalan @me @dahukanna It all are, right? ;-) Models. The point here is that in the OST perspective, the environment is always there and it is conceptualized and dealt with explicitly.
Tobias Goeschel@trondhjort @dahukanna @roundcrisis Check out Niklas Luhmanns Theory of Social Systems. Solves the problems of individual vs group vs org and inside/outside of systems very elegantly.
@weltraumpirat Weirdly, Luhmann doesn't pop up often in the STS/OST materials.
@trondhjort likely because his oeuvre is mostly German. He is extremely popular in sociology and cultural science in Germany, though.
@weltraumpirat Right. And STS has mostly been developed in England, Scandinavia, US, Australia, and the Lowlands. š
Michael Hartle@trondhjort @roundcrisis But can't the very same argument be made against the org being a system, as it also does not exist in a void?
@mhartle @roundcrisis Where one draw the boundary is hard and a design choice for a specific reason. And finding the ones that do make sense and are useful in a given situation is not trivial for sure. They are a useful fiction as Buckminster Fuller wisely said. I do find it very useful to find the system and its environment and make that distinction explicit.