Insights into Operationalizing Communities of Practice from SSM-Based Inquiry Processes

Two systemic inquiries, based on soft systems methodology (SSM), into the potential for using community of practice (CoP) theory by an Australian-government created research and development corporation to change its knowledge management (KM) strategy, are reported. Key staff were engaged in the inquiry into how to build a third-order KM strategy based on CoPs; an exploration of key published work on CoPs yielded four SSM activity models—‘being a community practice system’; ‘doing the work of imagination sub-system’; ‘doing the work of alignment sub-system’ and ‘doing the work of engagement sub-system’. These models can be used as heuristics to aid the purposeful design of CoPs in other settings. SSM, enacted as a systemic inquiry, can be understood as a form of systemic action research, which was well equipped to deal with CoP theory and, when enacted participatively, can generate important systemic insights. The inquiry began the process of fostering an appreciation of third order KM but, on the evidence available, did not lead to on-going commitment to a CoPs-based KM strategy. Future research should acknowledge how the framing of research situations influences the research process, the importance of the design of practice change settings and the limited evidence for purposeful interventions leading to successful CoPs.     

Rapid Institutional Appraisal

A week-long intensive process of staff development and induction called Rapid Institutional Appraisal (RIA) was conducted in November 2000 in the Systems Discipline, Centre for Complexity and Change (CCC), at the Open University. We report the systemic roots and characteristics of the RIA as designed from traditions of soft systems methodology and rapid rural appraisal. Our experiences arising from our own use of RIA are described and the wider implications for organizational learning in a complex organization discussed. While acknowledging limitations with this RIA event, we argue that RIA offers a potential model for staff development for adaptive use in different contexts and on varying scales. The process builds on principles of "conversation" and "multiple perspectives" as the touchstone for establishing a purposeful community of practice.     

Enabling Political Legitimacy and Conceptual Integration for Climate Change Adaptation Research within an Agricultural Bureaucracy: a Systemic Inquiry

The value of using systems approaches, for situations framed as ‘super wicked’, is examined from the perspective of research managers and stakeholders in a state-based climate change adaptation (CCA) program (CliChAP). Polycentric drivers influencing the development of CCA research pre-2010 in Victoria, Australia are reflected on, using Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) to generate a boundary critique of CCA research as a human activity system. We experienced the complexity of purpose with research practices pulling in different directions, reflected on the appropriateness of agricultural bureaucracies’ historical new public management (NPM) practices, and focused on realigning management theory with emerging demands for adaptation research skills and capability. Our analysis conceptualised CliChAP as a subsystem, generating novelty in a wider system, concerned with socio-ecological co-evolution. Constraining/enabling conditions at the time dealing with political legitimacy and conceptual integration were observed as potential catalysts for innovation in research management towards better handling of uncertainty as a social process using systemic thinking in practice (StiP).

     

Appreciating Systems: Critical Reflections on the Changing Nature of Systems as a Discipline in a Systems-Learning Society

The paper reports a reflective inquiry into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of systems-related courses developed and presented up to 1995 by the former Systems Department in the Open University, UK. The SWOT analysis is considered in the context of the "systems movement" in its broadest sense. Based on the OU experiences the institutional challenges of systems-as-discipline and interdiscipline are explored. Three strategies for the future are suggested: (i) the potential of Systems Departments to demonstrate rigorous and coherent interdisciplinarity; (ii) for systemists to work harder to bridge the divide between their espoused theory and theory in use, particularly in their own institutional settings and (iii) the need for a rigorous pedagogy for "systems practice."