Mark Power

I’ve used the VSM to visualise my organisation and identify workflows and parts of the system. However, the VSM doesn’t really work when you’re focusing in on change…or methods by which change can happen. Talking to Oleg I learnt that Soft Systems Methodology was used when it came to his thinking on how to make improvement changes to the organisation last year.

I’ve got the book “Soft Systems Methodology in Action”, Checkland & Scholes, and have to say that it immediately strikes me as being a very useful method by which to analyse and help think about change. Below is one of the sketches out of the book. Click on the image for a bigger version.

SSM

 Of course, there’s loads to it and I won’t get through a sliver of it in the module but I’ll be making a number of further posts over the coming days - looking at the elements useful (and feasible) to my needs as regards completing the Organisational Improvement module.

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I’ve just posted similar on the Moodle discussion board but felt, “what the hell”, and decided to repeat it here…

What I’m currently stuck on is answering the question around Organisational Improvement (been thinking too, would that be better being termed “change”?)…when the organisation in question operates with such a high level of autonomy that the boundary and relationship between individual and organisation is blurred to be almost indistinct.

In this picture you have individuals that operate their own personal fiefdoms, of sorts, and are incredibly resistant to new organisational ideas. Or at least that is my perception of it. I’ve talked to 2 assistant directors - bear in mind that these are people on the management side of the organisation - about my view of things, and I get 2 completely different viewpoints back. Not differing flavours of the same vision…different visions.

So where I think I’m going to target suddenly shifts and I wonder, “how the hell can I approach the issue of organisational improvement when I’m stumped for identifying a unified organisation in the first place!??”.

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I’ve been very poor at keeping up this blog I’m afraid. I’m shackled by the thought that I’m just not a very good writer - when it comes to articulating thoughts and ideas in this format. Of course it doesn’t have to be done in this way does it. I could record audio, or create some videos…but I don’t like the sound of that either!! Need to reshape my thinking…I think.

Anyway…

Thinking about Module 2 - “Organisational Improvement”. I’ve talked to Scott Wilson and Oleg Liber about the processes involved specifically when it came to making changes to CETIS’s operations.

My thinking is to go about this in the following way:

1. Visualise the organisational context and highlight areas in which the organisation could be “improved”, using that wonderful Management Cybernetics tool; the VSM (Viable System Model)
   
2. Focus on an area and look at methods used to instigate change - the one I’m focusing on now is Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) and the CATWOE analysis method

That’s basically how I’ll approach the first parts of the module. I will blog shortly on both these points.

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I bought the TES the other day (I know I should do more regularly) and was rather chuffed to find that it had a booklet in with it, “Great Minds - Education’s most influential philosophers”. The beauty of this was that it gave a really accessible and clear overview of educational theories that I’ve heard talked about but never actually understood what they are and how they play a part in education…I’ve never worked in teaching so educational theory was never something I took the time to look at. Perhaps that’s a brave confession to make but still…better late than never, eh?

Anyway, I get to the section on Cognitive Theories and Learning Styles and found that whole area very interesting indeed as it - even more so than the others - was clearly a topic I could turn on myself and ask, “what kind of learner am I?”, again, something I’ve never really taken the time to sit back and consider.

I read a little about Kolb’s ideas and the axis of learning and while the diagram in the TES pullout was a little more basic than the one below it was immediately clear to me that I exist in the top part of the layout - Feeling, Watching, Doing - or Accommodating & Diverging Learners.

Kolb's Learning Styles

Straight after that the piece touched on Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Now, ok, I’m only just coming to this and know nothing about it but my immediate feeling was one of acceptance - it made sense to me. I’ve always considered myself quite a visual person - I used to be heavily into films and now I’m a budding (if I do say so myself) amateur photographer. I’ve always been heavily affected by aesthetics, visual stimulii and even the level of ambient lighting in a room when attempting to relax. I’m not so good with concentrating on thinking solutions through logically and I consider myself pretty poor at articulating things verbally.

I followed a couple of given links to basic tests that would outline who I am when it comes to this and got the following diagrams back…

My learning style

The results seem to tell me what I’d already thought but never knew there was a theory and lovely graph to display it in - heavily visual and prefers working in groups than alone. What it has also done though is made me reflect on my outputs, my assessment patches for the first module.

Unsurprisingly, my first idea for LO1 - Locating where I am in the field - was a ‘graphical representation’ of JISC World and where CETIS, and thus myself, sits in that.

However, what about the others? It seems I’ve just automatically promised reports when I may well be better off finding another way.

My learning style - another view

So…another rambling blog post (apologies once again!)…but as amateur as it is I suppose it can still be considered a piece of learning and - for me - a valuable one as it means I’ve taken my first steps to understanding the deeper levels of the field in which I work, rather than solely focusing on shiny, exciting technology without any *real* grasp of why and how the technology can drive education in new and innovative ways. Of course it now means I have yet another area of interest to read up on…and the days don’t get any longer

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