February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches1 Research Circle on Managing IT: Challenges in Emergent Organizations Joel Adler Ph.D

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches2 Agenda/Contents What is a Research Circle? Circle Participants Circle Activities Circle Focus Areas Value Proposition Summarized How to Participate

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches3 What is a circle? Circles bring together practicing experts in the field with academic experts and researchers to address a central theme of interest and challenge to the business. Circle projects provide an opportunity to leverage a diverse source of talent and experience not available within the corporate boundaries. Circle discussion sessions and lecture series introduce new approaches and ways of addressing issues. Circle participants determine the focus of the circle. The goal of a circle is to generate ideas and solutions that can help improve a company’s ability to manage complex IT Challenges

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches4 Circle Academic Sponsors The University of Pennsylvania : The Ackoff Center for Advanced Systems Approaches Executive Masters program of Technology Management (Penn Engineering & and the Wharton School)

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches5 Circle Participants CIO’s and their senior staffs from many industries Organizations with compelling desire to address issues Key topical experts and academicians

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches6 Circle Activities Circle Practice Research Quarterly at Penn for One Day: Education Sessions 1/2 day Research Circle 1/2 day

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches7 Circle Research Research to develop best practices Case studies Diagnostic tools Industry analyses Practice guidelines Etc.

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches8 Quarterly morning Education Sessions Lead by authorities in the topic of interest Substantive,digestible and applicable Topics chosen by subscribers 6 to10 attendees per subscriber $12.5K to $25K/yr depending on firm size $25K for sales greater than $1 billion

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches9 Quarterly afternoon Research Sessions Research projects chosen by subscribers Team for each research project Systems and Executive Masters students A topic scholar/authority supervises Direct project/program supervision- Joel Adler QA for systems principles – R. Ackoff or J. Pourdehnad Joint paper authorship by team Projects.5 to 1 year duration $12.5K to $25K/yr depending on firm size, $25K for sales greater than $1 billion 2 participants per company First viewer privileges

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches10 Quarterly afternoon Research Sessions Agenda Facilitated by Joel Adler Results presented by leading scholar & student Sponsor adjustments to research agenda Inter-company discussion and forum on topic of choice

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches11 Circle Theme for 2002 IT & organizational evolution Managing difficult IT management challenges generated by Technology Enabled Organizational Transformation

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches12 Objectives Improve current practices for IS planning and IS Development Concentrated focus on managing IT driven organizational change Address both currently common, and emerging organizational structures spawned by technology innovation

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches13 Why this is needed IT projects fail consistently Best practices often don’t help such as, more user involvement more complete requirements specs Not much guidance available on IT project coordination with organizational change Deeper problem may be related to: Some organizations are inherently “emergent”, others increasingly so, facilitated by IT and Telecoms

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches14 Some terminology “Emergent” organizations are “complex systems” “Complex systems” are “chaotic” & behave unpredictably “Agility” is the ability to adapt to unpredictable change Limitless B to B e-commerce partnerships become “interprises” “Interprises” are “emergent” Complex systems not the same as “Complicated” systems which have a very broad and/or deep problem scope but are not necessarily “complex”., e.g. artificial intelligence and robotics.

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches15 Factors of Complexity and Challenge to IT organizations Unpredictable behavior and events create unstable backdrop: mergers, reorganizations, leadership changes, market factors.“Complexity theory” explains some unpredictable behavior. Technological innovation in IT and Telecoms create emergent organizations: Web enabled enterprises, interprises, B-to-B ecommerce partnerships, supply chain innovations. Distinction between “user” of technology and technologist are blurred Organizational & Systems “Agility” is required to adapt to unpredictable change

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches16 Topical Themes Identified to Date - IT Organizational evolution questions: Do today’s organizational models support the blurring of lines between business and technology? Is a new IT organizational model required to keep up with the pace of technical change? What are the key changes that are most likely to be the challenge to the IT organization? Organizational models-is there one that yields a higher ROI on IT investment?

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches17 Topical Themes Identified to Date IT Organizational evolution research areas: Case studies of IT facilitated emergent organizations Future prevailing business organizational structures Industry sector differences? New IT management/leadership priorities Developing agility!! Facilitating technologies and their timetables Best practice guidelines for: IT driven user organizational change IT organizations

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches18 Topical Themes Identified to Date Decision support systems Delivering faster to meet the demand for information Application Successes and Challenges: Lessons learned across industries Advanced technical solutions (are they industry specific?) Complicated but not complex challenges, e.g. Medical diagnosis support.

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches19 Topical Themes Identified to Date IT Management tools in highly changeable emergent organizations Education: Creating IT leaders that can navigate the change Do metrics work in fluid and emergent organizations? Prevalent metrics and controls. Is a new scorecard for IT management needed? Characteristics of new IT planning & IS development tools? Alternative processes and controls: What’s used: SEI/CMM, ISO 9000… Getting pay back. (How to accelerate adoption to deliver results with less overhead.)

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches20 Topical Themes Identified to Date Technical tools for emergent organizations - what value? 1: Open interfaces with content standards 2: Knowledge management tools for coopitition 3: OOPS for limitless process granularity 4: Very high level/fast development tools Is current technology OK for simple process orgs? Otherwise are more advanced tools needed? e.g. Model driven architectures, Metamodelling, Adaptive Object Models, Knowledge Sharing Management…

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches21 Systems Research Principles Solving the “wrong problem right” often creates worse problems Too see the right problem, i.e., “the mess”, understand the: The entire context of the problem The relationship between the sub-problems Then attack the right problem or sub-problem first Reducing problem difficulty always the goal Total solution often is elusive.

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches22 Circle Value Proposition Obtain ideas and solutions generated through interaction with CIOs and practitioners from diverse industries. Direct access to research and insight offered by academicians and researchers in the field Collaborative development of solutions to issues that the Circle selects Applied innovation and access to emerging best practices

February 2002 Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches23 Getting Involved Initial group meeting Attended by prospective subscribers Review administration of circle Establish Research Agenda Call Joel Adler, EMTM and Ackoff Center, to attend initial group meeting