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James Wood FBCS CITP
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Discover Team Learning and unleash the power of your team.
Team Learning is a key Sea of Systems foundation skill and your
key to team success with Systems Thinking.

In James Champy's "X-engineering the Corporation - Reinventing Your Business for the Digital Age", Champy offers the view of a network of interconnected processes, from customer to customer, organization to organization. This view is truly inspiring, even still today and perhaps even more so, as the promise of increased complexity has well and truly delivered since 2002 when the book was first published. Cross-engineering has become an essential part of some business models, however for many more businesses it is still deficient and requires focus.



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James Wood FBCS CITP
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At the LAST conference 2012 we had an introduction to Systems Thinking
(ST), now it’s time to roll-up our sleeves and get some work done around
embedding ST into our everyday workplace.

This interactive workshop focuses on developing a dialogue with the group to build a shared understanding of the challenges in introducing ST, and discovers how to get coworkers and managers to embrace the ST way.

Based on the well-known methods of Deming and Senge the workshop aims to produce the following outcomes:

● A common understanding of the challenges of ST
● A pragmatic take-away strategy to embed ST
● Understanding how to continually improve ST

Group size 8-10 participants / duration 1.25 hours / whiteboard and flipchart.

Confirmed - Visit LAST conference for tickets.



LAST Conference Melbourne is a one day, low cost, grassroots mini-conference for Lean, Agile, and Systems Thinking practitioners. The day will be structured to allow participation and interaction via workshops and activities, rather than death by projector.

The emphasis will be on:

● Sharing of practical skills
● Real world experiences of lean and agile adoption
● The latest in systems thinking practice
● Gaining inspiration from your fellow practitioners

Key facts:

● Date - Friday 2 August 2013
● Venue - Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn
● Participation cost - Affordable!

Visit LAST Conference for details and bookings...

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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

The 2013 edition of Sea of Systems builds on the 2011
edition with enhanced and expanded explanations of
Deming cycle, reflection, system archetypes, systemic
mapping and systems thinking.



3500 copies downloaded

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Sea of Systems by James Wood is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.solonline.org.

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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

Start 2013 armed with an action plan that will propel your
IT organization to new levels of excellence, by refocusing
on Organizational Learning and Systems Thinking.

Participate in our Global Survey and receive the all-new 2013 Survey Report including a synopsis, IT industry benchmark and recommendations to embed Systems Thinking in
your IT organization:


If an IT organization cannot keep up with the rate of change it will fall behind. In today's global economy, products, services, core and non-core IT and Business processes can all be copied. Organizational Learning cannot.

It has become perfectly plausible that Organizational Learning is the only way to create a truly sustained competitive advantage. Moreover, an IT organization's ability to learn faster, smarter and better than its competitors may be the only determining factor in its future success.

How does your IT organization stand, does it have a Learning Culture?

Participate in our survey to find out.
Intrigued? Want to learn more?...

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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

We've all got our reasons, here are my top
ten reasons for loving Systems Thinking―
what are yours? Leave me a comment...


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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

Fellow Systems Thinkers!

Following on from the introduction to Systems Thinking session on July 27 2012 I wanted to provide a more comprehensive response to your excellent questions. I have provided the Q&A session via YouTube and captured your questions herein.

It was a real pleasure talking with you and I hope that we’ll have a chance to continue the dialogue and indeed go on to build a strong community of systems thinkers!

Here’s an important reminder: please start to think about your elevator pitch and how you will approach the subject of systems thinking (ST) with your colleagues and friends. What will you tell your colleagues on Monday morning? How will you start to get other people interested in this fantastic way to see the world?



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Nicolas Stampf
Appreciating Systems
Follow @nicolasstampf

Lean coaching without resistance makes embarking on your Lean
journey effective and trouble free. It achieves this by breaking the
journey up into pivotal moments of change and using a solution focus
to engage and secure commitment from executives during each step
of the way.


The benefit of Lean coaching without resistance is two-fold, firstly it takes care of commitment, and there's a big difference between buy-in and true commitment, buy-in is what happens when executives understand that they have no choice but to support change, commitment however is what happens when executives recognize that they themselves have a need to change.

Secondly, it makes the process of securing commitment completely transparent by using leading motivational interviewing techniques that help to steer and facilitate the desired outcome, without press-ganging executives into buy-in or making false commitments.

Over 1000 views

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James Wood FBCS CITP
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The term Systems Thinking sounds familiar doesn't it? Indeed when
asked most people say they have heard of Systems Thinking (ST).
It is not until people try to describe ST that they realize they have heard
of it but they don't know what it is.

Join me for this introductory session on ST and discover how to infect
yourself and others with this amazing way to see the world.

Together we will explore what ST really is, we will learn how to explain
ST to our friends and colleagues (create our elevator pitch), learn what
ST definitely is not (myth busting) and see how ST helped me to save
$$$ in technology provisioning.

Sponsors





LAST Conference Melbourne is a one day, low cost, grassroots mini-conference for Lean, Agile, and Systems Thinking practitioners. The day will be structured to allow participation and interaction via workshops and activities, rather than death by projector.

The emphasis will be on:

● Sharing of practical skills
● Real world experiences of lean and agile adoption
● The latest in systems thinking practice
● Gaining inspiration from your fellow practitioners

Key facts:

● Date - Friday 27 July 2012
● Venue - Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn
● Participation cost - $50 (plus a small booking fee) to secure your place. Even lower for "Innovators" and "Early Adopters".

Visit Last Conference for details and bookings...

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David Alman
Proventative Solutions

Soft Service is a Soft Productivity methodology that
seeks to improve services to customers, through the
quality and efficiency of internal operations.


The benefit of the Soft Service approach is that improvements are driven by focusing on meeting user needs and expectations, and through this focus the value of work practices and relationships in meeting (directly and indirectly) customer requirements are improved.

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James Wood FBCS CITP
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This is a great example of team learning in action,
where together an online community produced an
outcome that was greater than what the individual
contributions would have been.

Context

Many of us have already ventured out into the Cloud and gone the Software as a Service (SaaS) route, no doubt it has been a challenging transition with many hurdles and pitfalls to watch out for along the way. I'd like to share with you the research undertaken by the Chartered Institute for IT's LinkedIn group on the challenges of SaaS adoption.

Cloud Computing is not just about getting IT off the books and reducing investment and maintenance costs into software (SW) and hardware (HW). It has also proven to be much more than just another way to deliver an IT service, it ushers in a new paradigm in the way we think about IT.

In the new paradigm CIOs and IT directors take on the role of service broker and integrator, matching services to requirements and employing the most effective strategies to enable tactical, operational and strategic objectives.

Armed with the flexibility and agility to dial-up and down services on-demand combined with flexible sourcing options and the IT service broker becomes a dependable long-term strategic partner in achieving the end-game for the Business.

That's the paradigm that Cloud Computing and SaaS help to enable, as you might expect with a change of that magnitude the journey is fraught with pitfalls and challenges that can make or break an IT department.

Here are some of the key challenges to watch out for when embarking on the SaaS route.

I would like to thank my colleagues at the Chartered Institute for IT, Mandy, Gary, Mark, Ashish, Paul N, Jon and Paul C, for participating in this research project and sharing their knowledge and experience.

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David Alman
Proventative Solutions

David Alman joins us at OLIT to explore some of the
main approaches of systems thinking in improving
organizations.

Context

The ability to lead and manage is sometimes compared to team sports like basketball and football. Often the abilities of sports captains, players, and teams are exampled as to what makes a great performance.

Yet coaches understand that a team’s performance depends on a range of supporting systems: A system of playing on the field that optimises players and team capability and opponent weaknesses; a system of selecting, training, and developing players; a system that engages and commits players to do their best, and so on.

While leaders and managers understand their organizations similarly perform, learn, and improve based on underpinning systems, a conscious approach to managing change and achieving high performance through systems – a Systems Thinking (ST) approach – seems less discussed.

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James Wood FBCS CITP
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Take the risk out of strategic betting with Sea of Systems 101
and the foundation skill of system dynamics―understanding
the difference between high and low leverage.

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Discover the difference between high and low leverage interventions...

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James Wood FBCS CITP
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Shared visions are key to building a successful learning organization,
enjoy the fun of foundation skill Sea of Systems 101, by building your
IT organization's very own shared vision!

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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

Help us build the community for Organizational Learning
in IT by visiting our cool Facebook page if you Like our page
why not share it with your friends. Thanks for your support!

Visit us and Like us at Facebook by clicking below:



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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

Dive into the crystal clear waters of reflection for
Sea of Systems 101, and discover your most powerful
gift and foundation skill for understanding systemic
complexity. Enjoy the power of reflection!

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius.



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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

Join us in busting the urban myth of 'IT nouveau'―permanently. Using
the IT maturity model of Sea of Systems (SOS), CIOs can finally demystify
the urban myth of IT nouveau and keep it that way for good.



What is doing the same old? Forging ahead with a fervent belief that ITIL®, PRINCE2®, PMBOK®, Agile and whatever other IT framework or methodology you care to mention, will increase the maturity of your IT organization on their own merits.

What is adopting the Sea of Systems approach? Knowing that your IT organization's maturity will benefit significantly by using a systematic and systemic approach to organizational learning as a way to complement and strengthen the investment you have already made into ITIL®, PRINCE2®, PMBOK®, Agile, and others.

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James Wood FBCS CITP
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Life is a journey that requires as its premise the ability to
adapt and change continually along its path ― to embrace
change means to embrace life at its heart.

Context

Whether we like it or not we are driven by change, the concept of perpetual change has been with us since the days of Aristotle, when he captured the philosophical notion of the 'Unmoved Mover'. In the 13th century St. Thomas Aquinas took the notion one step further, laying the foundation for modern thought regarding the nature of being with 'Prima Causa'. The first cause being god, from which everything else moved.

We live in a constant flux of change, our seasons and climatic conditions are constantly changing, enterprises change by way of corporate conquest, governments change, even entire civilizations come and go.

This is why as a people we often seek permanence, a rock to hold on to, on which to build a solid foundation for our lives. Permanence does have its drawbacks, indeed it has led to the downfall of civilizations. Because the intrinsic stability of permanence often precludes the flexibility required to adapt and survive.

How do we survive in IT? IT is driven by change, our assets are carefully planned and our outcomes meticulously scheduled and managed in order to deliver on time and within defined scope, quality, cost and risk.

We certainly have the processes and know-how to manage change well during defined periods of change, which we call Service Transition in the ITIL® Service Management framework, but how about our ability to manage change as a constant?

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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

The 2013 edition of Sea of Systems builds on the 2011
edition with enhanced and expanded explanations of
Deming cycle, reflection, system archetypes, systemic
mapping and systems thinking.

Please click the picture below to download your copy.


Sea of Systems is aimed at the CIO, CTO and IT Executive level, as well as at IT Managers and Professionals working within type I and II service provider organizations or IT organizations that provide services to clients within the same organization or group.

3500 copies downloaded

Download Sea of Systems (SOS)...


Sea of Systems by James Wood is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.solonline.org.

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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

We have everything we need right here, right now ― Organizational
Learning provides IT organizations with a way to unlock their 'higher
purpose' potential.

Context

Increasing maturity in any organization can be an exigent and arduous task, one that requires both patience and eagerness in measured amounts.

Increasing maturity in IT organizations is often convoluted by a level of systemic complexity that involves deep knowledge and understanding of IT people and processes. It requires a blueprint that provides the greatest level of support for both people and processes across IT.

In order to generate the level of Outcome required of modern IT organizations increasing maturity must be addressed systematically, incremental increases must be planned and harvested over a long-term horizon ― it is very much a long-haul journey.

Like all thousand-mile journeys it starts with one step, but before we take that step let's focus for a while on the objective. What is Outcome? How do we define Outcome?

I prefer to avoid the generic and almost profane definition of Outcome as we know it in "delivering outcomes", instead I will return to the roots of IT, because in my book Outcome in the context of IT is all about Innovation.

In IBM Global Business Services’ CIO Study one of the key roles of IT is driving technology innovation to make it a reality. We looked at Innovation in the first post in the series and in this last post we shall return to Innovation ― this time as the tangible Outcome of IT.

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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

Take up the challenge and submit an OLIT survey and we'll get back to
you with a report and recommendations to enable a learning culture
specifically for your IT organization.

Participate in our Global Survey and receive a follow-up assessment and informational pack including, a synopsis, IT industry benchmark and recommendations to enable a Learning Culture in your IT organization:


If an IT organization cannot keep up with the rate of change it will fall behind. In today's global economy, products, services, core and non-core IT and Business processes can all be copied. Organizational Learning cannot.

It has become perfectly plausible that Organizational Learning is the only way to create a truly sustained competitive advantage. Moreover, an IT organization's ability to learn faster, smarter and better than its competitors may be the only determining factor in its future success.

How does your IT organization stand, does it have a Learning Culture?

Participate in our IT culture survey to find out.
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James Wood FBCS CITP
Follow @smetsys

As IT leaders we must set our sights on The Living & Learning IT
Organization ― how to increase the intellectual output and
cohesiveness of an organization made from disparate units or
islands that sometimes appear to have little in common.

Context

In the last post on Developing IT Management Style we discovered by means of the Case Study that the most challenging issues faced by IT Management in delivering innovation were enablement and leverage. It is quite often said that a high percentage of new ideas fail, not because they're bad ideas, but rather because their inventors can't leverage them.

Many great ideas fail because they cannot get off the ground; add to the equation a busy IT support environment, budgetary constraints, resource issues, deadlines, priorities and governance, and it's hardly surprising that even the most brilliant of ideas quite often get shelved. Sometimes for good, especially in our rapidly changing organizational environments.

If we also consider an organization's inability to learn, then it's very surprising that we manage to deliver any innovation at all. Quite often we're struggling to keep our heads above water, in implementing somebody else's innovation, let alone bringing our own innovation to the table.

We have looked into some fundamental ways how to enable and develop the innovative management style, what we need to do next is find out how to leverage the whole of IT in bringing the newfound innovation to fruition. Moreover, we need to build a central nervous system through which is channeled knowledge, information and organizational learning.

A central nervous system that connects and unites the whole of IT, from CIO to Data Center Operator, each member of the IT organization must be connected to the same bus concurrently in real time. Often the central nervous system only works when we feel pain ― "get it fixed", "restore service", and when the lights return to green once again we become disconnected.

In the human body the cervical vertebrae (neck bones) in the neck connect the brain to the spinal cord and rest of the body, which enables the central nervous system to function, any fracture or injury of the vertebrae can result in loss of sensation, paralysis, or death.

How is the central nervous system in your IT organization? Does it suffer from a momentary loss of sensation, is it partially or completely paralyzed or has it already passed away to be resurrected by an IT outsourcer?

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