Contents:
- The firm as a system
- Problems of complexity, uncertainty and change
- Practical guidelines to using the systems approach
- Open system approach concepts
- Objectives
- Includes extensive tables and diagrams
- Definition of open system terms
- Analysis of the firm as a system
- Analysis and design of systems
This supervisory guide will enable you to perform an open systems analysis of any 'system.' The systems or open systems approach is a highly effective technique to map your organizations internal systems and the external systems (suppliers, competitors, economy, etc) in order to inter alia look for opportunities to improve productivity.
Once you have completed your first open systems analysis you will use it again and again to collect the variables, map them and then analyze them. You will be better prepared for the future, more authoritative, better able to lead, and manage the resources you are charged with.
Use open systems analysis to analyze:
- An organization etc.
- A process or a number of processes
- A market
- A machine or set of machines
- A group of workers
- A department
Key Benefits:
- The technique is scalable up and down. That is it you can use it to describe situations and systems at both a macro and micro level. For instance, it is quite practical to use the technique for a department (as the system) within an organization (the environment.)
- The technique has many uses outside of organizational development as intimated in the PDF
- The open systems approach will allow you to model the key variables, both inside the organization and outside it. It will enable you to more quickly be in a position of understanding these key variables and their interrelationships.
- By regularly reviewing and revising (the annual planning review) your initial efforts the model produced can be updated to better enable you and your organization to achieve aims and objectives.
