Most organisations are facing major challenges in dealing with rapid change on a large scale. Management techniques have not always been adequate for the task of forecasting and managing processes of change in situations experienced as complex by stakeholders. Research with senior corporate people shows that the traditional skill set doesn’t go far enough in ‘managing’ complexity skills. Systems Practice for Managing Complexity (SPMC) is a new EPSRC-funded network designed to generate new insights and research questions by integrating the experience, needs and expertise of the business community, government agencies and the not-for-profit sector with researchers concerned with systems approaches for managing complexity.
The SPMC network has been set up by the Systems Discipline in the Centre for Complexity and Change at the Open University and the Milton Keynes campus of De Montfort University, along with several major international contributors. The aim of the project is to:
Harness the energies of current stakeholders to develop and share expertise within the network,
initiate new ‘networks of conversation’ between systems practitioners and “joined-up” thinkers in business, public sector, NGO and industrial contexts,
bring together those involved in the interfaces between human and technological systems,
gain an appreciation of the need for Systems Practice and how this might be met by new research and educational initiatives.
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| Vol23-Nov2001SE.pdf | application/pdf | 750.92 KB | English | DOWNLOAD! |
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Introduction
Welcome to this special edition of Systemist. This edition constitutes the proceedings of an initial stakeholder workshop for a new EPSRC 1 (Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council)-funded project entitled “Systems Practice for Managing Complexity Network” (SPMC). This workshop was called a ‘pre-launch’ event for reasons that are fully explained in the papers which follow. We are planning a major public launch of the Network in 2002. The launch events will include participation from international contributors to our network (see the sections Some Final Words and Future Plans).