Kline asserts that the complexity index of a system will lie somewhere between the sum and the product of these three terms depending on the degree of connectivity between the variables. Using this construct he estimated the complexity of sociotechnical systems as being Cf > 1013. This estimate supports one of the tenets of systems theory and management science that states that in very complex systems, such as sociotechnical systems, there is no all-encompassing theory for the entire system and that organizations are too complex to model with any accuracy.
The accepted approach to overcome this lack of an all-encompassing theory when analyzing organizations as systems is to examine and amass data from the systems of interest from several different viewpoints. Flood and Jackson [1991] have formalized this paradigm in a meta methodology called Total Systems Intervention (TSI): a systemic cycle of enquiry that encompasses the use of a range of established systems improvement methodologies to suit the systems of interest. TSI, and less codified approaches, require that the system analysts can select a range of methodologies that cover the salient behaviors of the system of interest.
In this paper we investigate the possibility of a parallel concept, that of describing or analyzing a system using a range of models or description formats. To this end, the paper summarizes eight models that can be used to provide perspectives from which to gain insight into the military enterprise. The paper concludes by comparing the coverage of the models and frameworks and
indicates there is a need to use an appropriate combination of them when analyzing the military enterprise and most other complex systems.
Defines standard
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| File | MIME type | Size (KB) | Language | Download | |
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| Paper-Architectural Description iceccs96.pdf | application/pdf | 49.92 KB | English | DOWNLOAD! |