The document below outlines the 'to be' modelling plan for the Smudie project. As indicated in previous blog posts, it will be more generic than initially planned to account for the uncertainties surrounding the systems likely to be adopted by the newly merged institution. In that regard it is hoped it will be more transferrable to other institutions addressing similar issues.
Wednesday 21 November 2012
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Project Deliverables: Planning the Case Study
The deliverables for the Smudie project were planned to be a detailed case study describing the project outcomes, together with this project blog which comments on the issues and actions leading to the delivery of those outcomes.
Tony Toole met with Dave White, the JISC project Critical Friend, in Oxford yesterday and part of the (wide-ranging and very helpful) discussion covered the potential content and structure of the case study.
The discussion to some extent was a mini brainstorming session and really represented the start of the case study planning process. It took into account the institutional changes taking place through the merger between Swansea Met and Trinity St David and the uncertainties about the future information systems plans resulting from this. As noted in previous posts in this blog, it has already been decided that the original plan for specific systems recommendations would now be inappropriate and that more generic proposals would be more useful. In fact, the outcomes of the Smudie project may actually have greater impact now as they will directly inform an ongoing change process.
The issue that was discussed at the meeting was the possible structure and content of the case study. The general conclusion was that key operational areas/functional components of the information management system could be targetted. The idea of identifying micro case study 'nuggets' was explored where key areas for improvement, identified by the 'as is' evaluation, would be developed. The key areas would be identified as being typical (and thus generic) for any institution and the solution adaptable as a result.
The additional benefit to the generic approach would be that the outcome would not only be of use to the newly emerging instiution as it develops its merged system solutions, it would also be of greater benefit to the wider JISC community as a transferrable project deliverable.
The discussion also concluded that a 'nugget' based case study would be more effective for consideration by senior management than any detailed inclusion of the modelling methods used to arrive at the proposed solutions. It was felt, however, that the modelling process, particularly the multi-model approach that combines the benefits of EA, VSM and SSM, would be of interest to that specialist area of action research. It was agreed that the dissemination of that outcome would be a useful additional project deliverable.
Tony Toole met with Dave White, the JISC project Critical Friend, in Oxford yesterday and part of the (wide-ranging and very helpful) discussion covered the potential content and structure of the case study.
The discussion to some extent was a mini brainstorming session and really represented the start of the case study planning process. It took into account the institutional changes taking place through the merger between Swansea Met and Trinity St David and the uncertainties about the future information systems plans resulting from this. As noted in previous posts in this blog, it has already been decided that the original plan for specific systems recommendations would now be inappropriate and that more generic proposals would be more useful. In fact, the outcomes of the Smudie project may actually have greater impact now as they will directly inform an ongoing change process.
The issue that was discussed at the meeting was the possible structure and content of the case study. The general conclusion was that key operational areas/functional components of the information management system could be targetted. The idea of identifying micro case study 'nuggets' was explored where key areas for improvement, identified by the 'as is' evaluation, would be developed. The key areas would be identified as being typical (and thus generic) for any institution and the solution adaptable as a result.
The additional benefit to the generic approach would be that the outcome would not only be of use to the newly emerging instiution as it develops its merged system solutions, it would also be of greater benefit to the wider JISC community as a transferrable project deliverable.
The discussion also concluded that a 'nugget' based case study would be more effective for consideration by senior management than any detailed inclusion of the modelling methods used to arrive at the proposed solutions. It was felt, however, that the modelling process, particularly the multi-model approach that combines the benefits of EA, VSM and SSM, would be of interest to that specialist area of action research. It was agreed that the dissemination of that outcome would be a useful additional project deliverable.
Monday 5 November 2012
The Practicalities of Management Modelling
EA modelling of management processes[1] has a similar overall purpose to other
modelling systems such as Checkland's Soft Systems Modelling[2]
and Beer's Viable Systems Model[3],[4].
They use their own (typically) visual languages to map and describe management
systems and processes with the common purpose of aiding conversations about
improvement and optimisation.
A brief comparison of the similarities and differences between these three Human Activity modelling systems is worthwhile as it sets the context for the use of Enterprise Architecture in this particular exercise and indicates how EA modelling can be enriched by drawing in features from the SSM and VSM approaches.
The fundamental commonality is the recognition that they are all attempting to model human activity systems and that they will be fuzzy descriptors as a result. There is no attempt by any to eliminate the human variability factor, only to accommodate it and to exploit its strengths.
What SSM and VSM both bring to EA is what Checkland calls the world view and Beer calls the environment. It is easy with EA to concentrate just on the enterprise and its systems and miss the impact of the outside world when planning.
A further feature that VSM brings to the consideration of management systems is their recursive nature: smaller systems exist within larger systems, but each has the same control and communications profile. All institutions are agglomerations of self managing units within units.
It is also important to recognise that the fact that de-facto self managing systems will emerge to fill gaps in the management infrastructure that institutional senior management are likely to have no knowledge of. The current student attendance monitoring processes at the University provide several examples of such invisible localised management arrangements.
A brief comparison of the similarities and differences between these three Human Activity modelling systems is worthwhile as it sets the context for the use of Enterprise Architecture in this particular exercise and indicates how EA modelling can be enriched by drawing in features from the SSM and VSM approaches.
The fundamental commonality is the recognition that they are all attempting to model human activity systems and that they will be fuzzy descriptors as a result. There is no attempt by any to eliminate the human variability factor, only to accommodate it and to exploit its strengths.
What SSM and VSM both bring to EA is what Checkland calls the world view and Beer calls the environment. It is easy with EA to concentrate just on the enterprise and its systems and miss the impact of the outside world when planning.
A further feature that VSM brings to the consideration of management systems is their recursive nature: smaller systems exist within larger systems, but each has the same control and communications profile. All institutions are agglomerations of self managing units within units.
It is also important to recognise that the fact that de-facto self managing systems will emerge to fill gaps in the management infrastructure that institutional senior management are likely to have no knowledge of. The current student attendance monitoring processes at the University provide several examples of such invisible localised management arrangements.
[1] http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/ea/index_html
[2] Checkland,
Peter B. & Poulter, J. (2006) Learning for Action: A short definitive
account of Soft Systems Methodology and its use for Practitioners, teachers and
Students, Wiley, Chichester.
[3] 1972, Stafford Beer, Brain of the Firm;
Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London, Herder and Herder, USA.
[4] 1989, Ed. Espejo and Harnden The Viable System
Model; John Wiley, London and New York.
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