Reference:Glossary of terms/Design Concepts
From STS Roundtable
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This glossary of Socio-technical systems terms was published by, and is copyright of, Eli Berniker, May 1983
| Introduction | Systems and Organization | The Means | The Human System | Getting Something Done | The Analysis | Design | Design Concepts | Design Structure and Process | Design Principles |
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Joint Optimization
The traditional way to design organizations is to optimize the technical system design and make people adjust to the machines as designed. Given that joint causation operates, the best and most effective design must reflect the optimum conditions for the combined social and technical system. Hence, joint optimization. But that is a misnomer.
First of all, there is a multitude of goals, purposes and constraints that must be satisfied. These are imposed by the many "stakeholders" interested in the organization's activities: stockholders, members of the organization, government agencies and groups in the environment.
Secondly, "optimizing" is unrealistic. That requires looking at all of the possible organization designs and picking the optimum. Even if it were possible, that solution would not remain valid very long in a changing environment. It is possible to "satisfice" - find a solution that both satisfies and suffices and then stop searching. The process used to design is critical to this search; the search procedure will determine the solution.
Participative Design
An outsider can engineer the design of someone else's organization and even try to put it into place. However, the members of that organization will have learned very little about organization design. They will not be equipped with the skills and experience necessary to adapt their organization to environmental changes. Only through participative design of organizations can they reinvent them as the need arises.
"We will not design your organization for you." That is a good consulting rule and a good rule for the design teams. The ideal membership of a design team is the people whose working lives are being designed. They are "expert" in their working lives and organizational functioning and will become increasingly so as they have to live with the consequences of design decisions. They "own" the problems and will have to "own" the solutions that are to be implemented.
The design team can be trained to conduct its own STS analysis, to develop a coherent philosophy and to identify significant gaps in the technology. The team can be supported by facilitators and technical experts when needed.
Requisite Response Variety The greater the variety of responses available to an organism, the more likely it is to survive. In organization terms, the more variety of responses built into organizations and their subunits, the more adaptable they will be in turbulent environments. Stated differently, to survive, an organization must possess the requisite repetoire of responses to match the demands coming from the environment.
Self-Maintaining Organization Unit
If the design team has properly bounded an organizational subsystem, designed the technical system and social system and assembled the requisite variety of organizational skills and technical competencies within the social system, the organizational unit can effectively fulfill its functions as well as maintain itself. Hence, the concept of a self-maintaining organization unit.
Such a unit manages itself; it does not need to be controlled by management. Management's role is at the boundary: providing resources, directing outputs and "running interference" with the rest of the organizational system.
Where is the power and control? In quality of work life innovations based on STS analysis, some of the powers of management and unions are transferred to teams of workers. Often it is only the "illusion of control" that is exchanged for much greater influence afforded by self-managing organizational units.
