How Open Systems Theory is Relevant to Agile


At the beginning of the twentieth century, a science for understanding and managing organizations was being formed. Frederick Taylor, considered as the first ever management consultant, did extensive studies to improve productivity by analysing production tasks and implemented them successfully in several factories. Around the same time, Max Weber developed his theories on ‘Bureaucracy’ and Henry Fayol, his ‘Principles on Administration’. Management Science was thus born and the primary concern remained with goals, structure and efficiency. This science has it’s roots in the idea of a Newtonian clockwork universe – that all systems work according to some predetermined rules that keep them working as well-oiled machines. It was also believed that to understand any system, we have to break it down into its parts, which is nothing but analytical thinking. When organizations are thought of as machines, it has its implications on how we understand organizations and the sub-systems within – as closed systems.

Read more: /https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/closed-vs-open-systems-its-relevance-agile-vijaya-devi-s/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feedback Fundamentals

Image
  “You cannot improve what you don’t measure’" – Edward Deming If I have to slightly tweak Deming’s words, I would say “you cannot improve what you don’t get feedback on”. It is that time of the year when most of the organizations are working through their annual performance review rituals. Managers face a challenging task of giving a satisfactory review, rating and raise. What was once a purely annual performance review, has undergone some changes - many organizations conduct periodic – quarterly or half-yearly reviews to ease the process. Periodic review meetings help to avoid surprises and help individuals improve their performance on a continuous basis. Most importantly they help in improving the process of review itself. One of the fundamental processes in the performance appraisal cycle is the process of giving feedback – useful information for the receiver to help him/her to make the necessary corrections in behaviour so that performance improve...
Read more

How to know if your Job is Intrinsically Motivating

Image
Many people are aware of the ‘Autonomy-Mastery-Purpose’ triad concept promoted by Daniel Pink in his hugely popular book ‘Drive’. Pink says for jobs to be intrinsically motivating, people need to have autonomy (to make decisions over what they do and need), mastery (continuously learning and improving oneself) and purpose (a guiding principle that is beyond profit and self-interest). What many people may not be aware of is a closely related and equally interesting framework presented by Hackman and Oldham in the 1970s which is called the Job Characteristics Model (JCM). It describes 5 core characteristics of a job and how they lead to intrinsic motivation. Below is the model representation : The model describes 5 core dimensions of a job, 3 psychological states it achieves and the personal and work outcomes of such a job. The core dimensions are : Skill Variety, Task Identity, Task Significance, Autonomy and Feedback. The first three contribute towards experienced...
Read more

Do Shared Goals Help ?

Image
Definition. Shared Goals are goals or purpose held commonly by a group of people to which they are committed.   A recent engagement with participants of the TISS Winter School in OD for the social sector brought a very interesting aspect of organisations to the fore – that of having a common cause or a shared goal that will connect them together and energize them. In almost all the social enterprises where the OD students were involved in fieldwork, they experienced the employees and volunteers of these enterprises as very passionate about what they were doing. "We could literally see the spark and passion in their eyes” were the words used by the OD students as they shared their experiences. Most of the NGOs concerned here had minimal resources at their disposal – funds, human resources, office space, etc.  And they work with people who face poverty, abuse, unemployment, domestic violence, and many such issues that could be emotionally stressful and dr...
Read more