Coevolving Innovations

One of the benefits of the IBM’s Smarter Planet vision(s) is its encouragement to think about the 21st century world from a fresh perspective.  The rise of the service economy — which is not the same as the service sector — calls for the nurturing of talents with different emphases.  While curricula typically have a strong grasp of agricultural systems (developed since, say, 1600 A,.D.), and industrial systems (since, say, 1850 A.D.), the science of service systems is still emerging.

A study on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education by a 2007 National Academies committee published recommendations in 2008 for professional science master’s education that is interdisciplinary in character.  Such an investment in curriculum change has been proposed as a good use of stimulus funding in the U.S. In concert, 8 of 10 students expressed a wish for universities to revamp their traditional learning environments in the Smarter Planet University Jam conducted in spring 2009 .

In 2008 and 2009, the focus has shifted to primary and secondary school education, convening another National Academies committee centered on K-12, with a report due in 2010.  Jim Spohrer — formerly the Director of Almaden Services Research, and now the Director of IBM Global University Programs — updated me on his current thinking about a potential design for education on Smarter Planet Service Systems.

Jim is following confirmation of the effectiveness of a Challenge-Based Learning approach by the New Media Consortium as “a strategy to engage kids in any class by giving them the opportunity to work on significant problems that have real-world implications”.  I liked his ordering of systems into three levels:

In Toronto — partially in response to members of the International Society for the Systems Sciences looking for sustainable alternatives to the pattern of annual meetings outside of North America every other year — we’ve started a Systems Sciences Meetup group.  There’s a rich history of people and events in the systems sciences in Toronto, and we’ve been remiss in keeping the momentum going.

The purpose of these meetups is to enable conversations amongst like-minded people interested in (continuing to) climb the learning curve on (the) systems science(s).  Having a keynote speaker provides a centre around which the conversations can coalesce.  In November 2009, Allenna Leonard led the first meetup with a talk on “What are the Systems Sciences”.  Given the holiday season, we deferred the next meeting to January.

With the announcement of a Memorial Celebration for Russell Ackoff in Philadelphia in February, it seemed natural to prepare a session for those unfamiliar with his life and work.  Thus, for the January 6 Systems Sciences Meetup, I’ll be leading a talk on “Russell Ackoff, abridged“.  Having satisfied a personal goal to create a single double-sided page of  highlights, I’ll be relying on two maps as visual aids.

Following a style prescribed by the master himself — not just examining the system, but also its environment — the professional timeline of Russell Ackoff includes his relationships with the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations (that included Fred Emery and Eric Trist), as well as C. West Churchman and Peter Drucker.  Ackoff became a professor emeritus in 1986, continuing his involvement with the systems community through research institutions honouring him, and conferences featuring him for keynotes.  Ackoff’s legacy in the systems sciences lives on through former students in the Social Systems Science (S3) program at the University of Pennsylvania (1975-1988).  A full-size view of this professional timeline is available as an interactive page with links.

For a conceptual view of Russell Ackoff, a map of his writings selects from chapters collected in Ackoff’s Best (1999).  Five chapters from the first three parts of the book — systems, planning, and applications — give a feel for his system of ideas.  The full-size view of these selected writings is also available as an interactive page with links.

In engagements with clients/customers, my work often includes system envisioning: facilitating the description of a collective desirable future (on a horizon of maybe 1 to 3 years out).  Once a group has converged on a future state or vision, moving forward is merely a matter of will.  Defining that future state, however, is more art than science.  In addition, with many more businesses operating as service systems, getting a handle on the invisible work that will be performed can be a challenge.  Work practices will coevolve with new technologies in ways unfamiliar to experiences to date.

In discussions with my colleagues, differences between their engagement approach and mine became clearer.  I understand and appreciate the process-based methods (e.g. process consultation by Ed Schein) used by large consulting teams, but my typical engagement is now timeboxed to a few weeks elapsed time, with just a few interviewers.  Some executive sponsors may ask for an interview guide in advance of coming onsite, but I don’t use a formally-structured guide.  The context for 60-to-90 minute interviews are light — we want people to talk about time-intensive activities and annoyances in their jobs — and generally find that interviewees would be happy if small adjustment could be made so that each would have to do less work.

Reflecting on these methods, I’ve seen a pattern of three stages in this approach:

• (1) Induction: Rather than coming in with a preconceived model of how work gets done in a particular business, let those closest to the activities speak freely.  From the data collected, converge on common patterns in issues and/or problems that can be reviewed, validated and prioritized for resolution.

Towards the development of a science of service systems I’ve been facilitating a group of senior researchers, internationally.  I’ve posted a presentation from a workshop in early September at the UKSS meeting in Oxford that reflects the current status of this project.

The results of this year-long project will be presented at the ISSS annual meeting scheduled for July 2010 in Waterloo, Canada.  The conversation started with an organizational meeting at ISSS Brisbane in July 2009.  Key face-to-face meetings when content will be developed include …

• in March 2010, a workshop supported by the Service Innovation Educational Program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (similar to the invited workshop in 2008 and in 2009 ; and
• in April 2010, a team participating in the (Fuschl) Conversation hosted by the International Federation for Systems Research.  (In a break from tradition, the meeting will probably not be at Fuschl am See this year, but another location in Austria).

The essential attributes of participants are an interest in service science and systems science … plus a tolerance for jet lag, or at least the willingness to work with collaborator spanning 14 time zones.  The core of the researcher team are drawn from among the officers of the International Society for the Systems Sciences.

The Service Innovation Educational Program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology hosted an “Open Seminar on Service Systems Science” (with a flyer in PDF) — as well as a private “Invited Workshop on Services Science, Management and Engineering” — in February 2009.

I’ve just noticed that much of the content is totally opaque to people who don’t read Japanese, so I’ve posted my (English-language) digest of the meetings on the Coevolving Innovation Commons.  The text is incomplete, but it at least provides a minimal sketch of some of the ideas discussed. (Digital photographs help, too!).  Speakers include:

• Ken Senoh, University of Tokyo
• Marianne Kosits, IBM
• Klaus-Peter Fahnrich, University of Leipzig; and
• Yonekura Hiroyuki, Gourmet Navigator; and
• a panel including Gary Metcalf, Jennifer Wilby, and Hiroshi Deguchi,
• moderated by Kyoichi Jim Kijima.

The 2009 meetings were an annual extension of the 2008 21st Century CoE Symposium, and the first Invited Workshop on SSME.

With many of the researchers coming from a perspective of systems science, the trend has been to work out some of the ideas on an emerging science of service systems.

I’ve been approaching the development of an emerging science of service systems from a background of the systems sciences.  Describing and designing service systems — not only in business, but also in the public sector — includes the evolution and development both of human organization and of technology.  A large body of knowledge on social systems science was developed in the post-war industrial age, e.g. research conducted by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (1941-1989).  This work has been categorized in three perspectives:

• the socio-psychological perspective;
• the socio-technical perspective; and
• the socio-ecological perspective.

The socio-ecological perspective emerged while facing cases where “von Bertalanffy’s concept of open systems” was not sufficient to deal with the degree of change in the environment.

We gradually realized that if we were usefully to contribute to the problems that faced the cases mentioned above we had to extend our theoretical framework. In particular, we had to discard the  assumption that systems or individuals could not know their environments and the unipolar focus on the system, or individual as system. In a positive sense we had to theorize about the evolution of the environment  and the consequences of this evolution for the constituent  systems.  (Emery 1997, pp. 38-39)

In 1967, Fred Emery summarized needs that the social sciences should have prepared to meet over the next thirty years.  More than a decade beyond that, we now have the Internet, globalization, and the prospect of an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent “smarter planet”.

The bridge in social ecology from the Tavistock legacy to current times is made in the 2008 volume, Business Planning for Turbulent Times , edited by Rafael Ramírez, John W. Selsky, and Kees van der Heijden.  The collection of papers is a culmination of the Oxford Futures Forum 2005, with a focus on the intersection between social ecology and scenario practice.

… we consider the future through the spectacles of the scenario approach.  While we do that, we reflect on our practice in the light of the perspective offered by a school of thought in the social and organizational sciences call social ecology, in particular its description of the ‘turbulent environment’.  We will show how scenarios and social ecology inform each other ….  [p. 4]

This volume doesn’t directly address service systems.  However, the foundations from social ecology provoke some consideration for service systems.  Reshuffling the sequencing of the chapters, I found myself reflecting on on the following five ideas:

• A. The problem: an addiction to prediction
• B. Sustaining organizational systems in turbulent environments
• C. Techniques for envisioning future systems
• D. Changing systems
• E. Shared value and engagement

The book has strong experience reports on scenario practices that may interest other readers.  I’m particularly focused on how advances in the understanding of social ecology can advance an emerging science of service systems.  Let’s expound on the five ideas.

A. The problem: an addiction to prediction