International Society for the Systems Sciences: Journals ISSS
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Anthropocene as Life’s State of the Art in Disorder Production: A Sustainability Conundrum
No full textThis paper launches on the proposal by Eric D, Schneider and James J. Kay that life is a response to the thermodynamic imperative of dissipating gradients. Adding a twist to the claim of Jeffrey Wicken that “entropic dissipation propels evolutionary structuring,” Schneider and Kay contend that “evolving life represents order emerging from disorder in the service of causing even more disorder.” Drawing on Gregory Bateson’s definition of information, a self-organizing system can dissipate a gradient, a “difference that can make a difference,” more efficiently than helter-skelter falling apart. Examples range from transient physical systems (Bénard Cells, hurricanes, tornadoes) and chemical systems (BZ color flipping clocks) to evolving biological (bacteria, trees, ant colonies, coral reefs, brains), and, it is proposed, human/biotechnological systems (automobiles, coal fired power plants, smartphones, apps) passing the baton of Erwin Schrödinger’s “order from order” means for sustainably remembering and capitalizing on what works. The second law of thermodynamics driven trend of disorder to order to even more disorder continues ever more effectively as state of the art in disorder production in the Anthropocene as autocatalytic, “Matthew Effect,” gradient degrading, human impacts on the biosphere, aided and abetted by advancing technology. Human/biotechnological driven gradient dissolution manifests itself not only in the usual tragedy of the commons victims of industrialized human activity−the sixth extinction of species, the toxic smog in Beijing and New Delhi, the vanishing glaciers, the draining of fresh water aquifers…−it manifests itself in and is linked to us. Robert Rosen observed that a “material system [can] change its own behavior in response to a force, and…that same system can generate forces that change the behavior of other systems.” Under the impress of the escalating force of techno-dependency, our addictive drug, as a system, we, convenience driven, environmentally foggy, smartphone glued to hand, clueless without app, humans are changing our behavior in ways that change the behavior of other systems, biospheric systems not excluded, and, on balance, not for the better. A sustainable future for coupled human/biotechnological systems and the soaring gradient of advancing technology is an oxymoron. The accelerating technical order is producing a deepening skew, a crossing tipping point to out-of-control, global warming scale, disorder of orders. A case-in-point can be seen by extrapolating the fragility of excessive interconnectivity in climax ecosystems, as Robert Ulanowicz pointed out, to the rising order of local and global interconnectivity rendering us, individually and collectively, increasingly vulnerable to looming, potentially catastrophic, collapse. What sustainability needs is the going forward stability of an order of orders. Viewing sustainability in the framework of flows and counterflows, excesses and deficits, concentrations and dissipations, of order as potent, transformable organized energy (exergy), a.k.a, power, this paper offers a possible handle on robustly overcoming the formidable barriers to gaining and latching a sustainable future, ourselves (hopefully) included.  
Three Constructs of Systems Thinking for Better Governing a Globalized World in the Anthropocene
No full textLiving in a globalized society implies that political thinking necessarily extends beyond the national level to reach us in our roles as citizens of the world. Living in today’s globalized society also requires a new level of political thinking commensurate with the complexity of its challenges. To overcome the many difficulties we, and the planet we live on, face in the Anthropocene era, it has become incumbent on human beings to practice systems thinking. This paper will examine how general systemic thinking, critical systems thinking, and whole healing systems thinking can help us both comprehend and overcome these challenges
FOUR LAYERS APPROACH FOR DEVELOPING A TOOL FOR ASSESSING SYSTEMS THINKING
No full textTo perform successfully systems engineering tasks, systems engineers need a systems view, in other words, a high capacity for engineering systems thinking (CEST). A tool for assessing systems thinking of engineers, once validated, may be used for systems engineering workforce selection and development, developing systems engineering curriculum, education, and training programs, as well as a standard tool for assessing systems engineers' competencies. Since there is no known way of directly 'measuring' systems thinking in general and CEST in particular, an indirect method is needed. This paper proposes an idea for developing an indirect means, i.e. a questionnaire for assessing the CEST of systems engineers. The idea is composed of four logic layers
Capacity Building and Think2Impact
No full text"The difficulty to establish systems education is evident in many institutions worldwide"; ".....is a highly complex task"; "There is a strong need to educate students who can deal with the complexities of integrating environmental, social, economic and business components associated with the development of sustainable management systems and the creation of new era leadership"; "There is a need for a new way of thinking in this complex and turbulent world we live..."; "... systems thinking needs to become mainstream in society". These are only a few sentences in current literature. Is a stronger emphasis and research on how to diffuse systems thinking in society - effective and continued capacity building -the answer? Capacity building in systems thinking is a concept with wide implications for a variety of people. We talk about 'Executive training programs', formal university education, informal training and learning - depending on the purpose of the capacity building. In all cases there is a need for a new way of thinking. Executive training programs address the need of managers and other decision makers to deal with the many problems they are facing that are embedded in a complex web of global issues that are all interconnected with each other. There is a strong realisation that issues cannot be solved anymore with traditional single discipline and linear thinking mindsets. This realisation has also led to employers to increasingly require from new people entering the workforce to have the attributes/capacity to redesign in systems and sustainability terms. This requirement has become one of the biggest challenges for education in this century and creates a significant pedagogical dilemma in current university education that tends to be focused on discipline specific teaching which has no room for a wider systems approach. It has become essential to develop innovative curriculum designs and learning environments that address academic paradigms as well as industry requirements. Then there are the many people in organisations, businesses, communities, government departments and other stakeholders who are not necessary at managerial or decision making levels, but who are (should be) involved in finding solutions to every day complex problems. In their case there is also a need for a new way of thinking, but they do not require a deep knowledge of systems concepts and theories. Informal training provides these members of society with knowledge and an awareness of the basic principles of systems thinking and interconnectedness, how user-friendly systems tools can help them to unravel the complexities and how to identify leverage points in the system for interventions that would address the root causes of the problems, rather than treating the symptoms. In this presentation the focus will be on: A discussion of the need for and value of learning platforms for ETPs and recent progress on determining effective modes of delivery that would have a global reach; Preliminary outcomes from the 'reflection step" of the first two rounds of the cyclic process of an ELLab for systems education, which revealed that students have shifted their way of thinking significantly from limited understanding and linear thinking to more coherent and interconnected thinking; How the use of Think2Impact as a global platform can fulfil our vision of educational institutions to be linked together for sharing reflections and lessons learned with each other in order to move to new levels of performance and assist each other to diffuse systems thinking into educational systems around the world; and the importance of capacity building through informal training (provided in the 'Learn' platform of Think2Impact) and co-learning during the establishment and cyclic running of an ELLab, and the capturing of these learnings to be shared through "Access" platform of Think2Impact
Ecological Footprint and Governing the Anthropocene through Balancing Individualism and Collectivism
No full textABSTRACT The current way of life is unsustainable (Papadimitriou, 2014) and in a bid to maintain the status quo – profit is extracted from people and the environment. The challenge of scaling up efforts to engage people in an alternative forms of democracy and governance is that currently the response to social, economic and environmental challenges is that internationally politics is being shaped by so-called realist politics (Beardsworth, 2011) based on a) competition for resources, b) the notion that profit and loss, win and lose is contained /carried by ‘the other’ and c) Huntington’s ‘clash of cultures’ thesis rather than an understanding of our interlinked, co-created and co-determined fate
Customer Centric Project Management Engaging the CUSTOMER in defining corporate requirements
No full textDefining business requirement is a critical activity in determining what functionality the enabling technology solution needs to deliver. Customer Centric Project Management (CCPM) is the continuous re-examination, evolution and definition of the stakeholders' business requirements. The aim of this research and impact analysis was to examine all the changes in the organization that make it viable. The objective was to explore the application of academic methodology, identify sine qua non components in operational environments and by extension inspire future reflections, future research to pro-actively prevent one or the most problematic aspects that fail projects.Findings and conclusions are primarily based on empirical evidence from observing the behaviour of CCPM applied to actual projects/cases, current literature and interviews with senior project managers. The focus of interest was on the impacts on business stakeholders, developers, the methodology, business analysts, organizational executives and on a promising framework for a solution.To make the methodology work, the findings point to the imperative to engage stakeholders, assign needed accountability, use business analysts, involve executives and allow the PM to govern the project
Action Research or Design Science Research as Methodology for the Development of a Historical Digital Graphical Novel? A Critical Systems Perspective
No full textThe legacy of Nelson Mandela is part of the lives of most South Africans. His story inspires South Africans and people around the globe to forgive and work hard to achieve freedom from oppression and poverty. For this reason, we need to keep his story alive and teach young people about the sacrifices he made to achieve his goals. Funded by an international consortium, a project called Mandela27 was launched to educate people around the world on the life of Nelson Mandela. Part of the project involved the development of a digital graphical novel depicting life in the prison where he served a 27 year sentence. This paper investigates action research and design science as design methodologies for the development of the digital graphical novel. The development of the digital graphic novel was commissioned to the Serious Games Institute of South Africa (SGI-SA) based at the North-West University. A serious game is a computer game that aims not only to provide entertainment but also to provide an educational experience to the user. The SGI-SA often uses design science research as research methodology when developing games. Design science research (DSR) is a methodology used mostly by engineers to develop artefacts. DSR aims to provide scientific rigour in the process of designing, developing, and evaluating artefacts. Its epistemological stance is that knowledge is created through the making of an artefact and evaluating the success thereof. Many different approaches are documented but most often the following cyclic phases are proposed: Awareness of the problem, suggestion of possible solutions, development, evaluation of artefact, and conclusion. Since these phases are comparable with typical AR phases (diagnosis, action planning, action taking, and specifying learning) the developers of the digital graphic novel had to reflect carefully on AR and DSR to select an appropriate methodology for the project. Both these methodologies use existing theory to guide the development process. Critical systems thinking promotes holistic thinking, pluralistic problem solving, emancipation, and reflection. This paper provides a reflection on the design of the digital graphical novel from an AR and DSR methodological perspective within the framework of critical systems thinking
DEVELOPING CAUSAL LOOP DIAGRAMS FOR COFFEE SUPPLY CHAIN: SUPPORTING TO ENHANCE THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES OF A VIETNAMESE COFFEE
No full textIn this paper, researchers develop causal relationships among different variables that present enablers and outcomes – operating within many identified feedback loops. The resulting causal loop model provides coffee managers with a snapshot of the dynamic interactions among elements in the coffee supply chain, which helps to identify proactive action in implementing the coffee supply chain philosophy for increasing the competitiveness of coffee products. Based on this review and analysis, recommendations are made regarding application of the causal loop method in coffee supply chain management. Important future research directions are also indicated
Understanding the management of the Chinese bank from Systemic Perspectives
No full textThis paper looks into the management and operational activities of the Chinese bank from cybernetic perspectives. The research is carried out using the application of Viable System Model (VSM) to explore the complex nature of banking activities according to Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety. Using VSM, we explore the nature of banking practice where it needs to assess, what happens in practice, and how we will design the system model for the banking business. Based on the systemic research on Chinese banking practice, we appreciate and present a good system model for the responsible management and feasible and desirable activities of the bank. Being a socially responsible bank, we propose a better banking practice from systemic perspectives. It allows a practitioner to be an actor for ‘sustainable finance’ in practice
Reprogramming anthropocene - crowdsourced governance of trans-technical systems
No full textAnthropocene happens to be the largest socio-material system ever created. Mankind is daily interacting with that system; there are many bonds and loops between the system components. Every innocent step is an interaction, every need / desire or a resource requirement, every wish to redesign even a smallest corner of the planet, or even helping one species to survive, reflects as a loopback to the planet reinforcing in that sense, through that (mostly negative) feedback, the concept of the anthropocene.Interactions are inevitable - micro-interactions build more observable and articulated actions which “crystallize” into patterns - chains of decisions and actions; we call them trans-technical patterns / bouquets. Finally, trans-technical patterns are loosely coupled into interconnected trans-technical processes.Those interactions are hard to recognize individually on that rather complex process level, and very often performed in Brownian-motion manner stochastically and by enormous number of actors in the anthropocene making it hard to observe and track. Still, following the principles of the minimal energy paths (as simple as walking across the same stepped through path across park) or following leading social behaviours, patterns got recognized, reinforced and eventually encoded in the embodiment of society, culture, and finally the anthropocene system in whole. We explain how this processes are one the most fundamental mechanisms of running society shaping anthropocene and how by acting on that level we are capable of governing anthropocene.Recognizing the fact that majority of big systems that humanity relies on (like economy, education, government, education, etc) are governed through cyberinfrastructure, we see how real-world socio-technical process got migrated into the cyberinfrastructure and how power-structures and behaviour patterns are imprinted in it.Our approaches are aligned with Bela Banathy's "True empowerment" - developing people’s competence to take part directly and authentically in the design of the systems in which they live and work, and on top of that increasing their motivation to take action.We address motivations issues by incorporating techniques resulting from Self-determination theory and through Social and emotional contagion processes.We introduce a concept of visual language for modeling those processes, together with an interface for domain-experts, capable of recognizing positive and negative trans-technical patterns, and present framework CollaboFramework for designing systems that follows those principles. We argue that the system design has to adapt toward more flexible loosely-coupled components that are capable of recognizing user interactions and processes and adjusting system experience and behaviour to achieve to most efficient results. That framework has to provide a set of system components that will provide mechanism, but also guarantee fulfilling principles. Through this framework we are capable of treating complex trans-technical interactions, political and business rules, power-structures, democracy laws/patterns and reprogramming trans-technical patterns imprinted in fabric of humanity.We present examples of our framework through the CollaboScience - the infrastructure for collaborative practice of research and examples of extracting insights in ISSS community of practice, followed with three shorter examples of Charirty.Net, DemocracyFramework, CollaboArte