Book : Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modelling for a Complex World (2000)

Summary

From the publisher:

Accelerating economic, technological, social, and environmental change challenge managers and policy makers to learn at increasing rates, while at the same time the complexity of the systems in which we live is growing.  Many of the problems we now face arise as unanticipated side effects of our own past actions.  All too often the policies we implement to solve important problems fail, make the problem worse, or create new problems.

Effective decision making and learning in a world of growing dynamic complexity requires us to become systems thinkers to expand the boundaries of our mental models and develop tools to understand how the structure of complex systems creates their behavior.

This book introduces you to system dynamics modeling for the analysis of policy and strategy, with a focus on business and public policy applications.  System dynamics is a perspective and set of conceptual tools that enable us to understand the structure and dynamics of complex systems.  System dynamics is also a rigorous modeling method that enables us to build formal computer simulations of complex systems and use them to design more effective policies and organizations.  Together, these tools allow us to create management flight simulators–microworlds where space and time can be compressed and slowed so we can experience the long-term side effects of decisions, speed learning, develop our understanding of complex systems, and design structures and strategies for greater success.

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Book : Industrial Dynamics (1992)

Summary

How do you design corporate structures and policies that are compatible with the growth objectives of your organization? This text addresses this crucial question and explains how managers’ actions shape the dynamic characteristics of a broad range of organizations. A reprint of the original text, Industrial Dynamics also contains numerous two-color graphs to help illustrate the concepts.

Here is the book that started the study of system dynamics! This classic work is for anyone in management, whether a student or seasoned professional. Forrester looks at a company as a dynamic system of interacting elements, gives a methodology on how to model them, and shows through simulation how the company will be affected by changes. The book covers industrial systems, managerial uses of industrial dynamics, models, systems of equations, flow diagrams, policies and decisions, production-distribution systems, and much more! If you’re interested in ithink, this book is an essential for your library. If you use Optima !iThink, this book will give you good advice on modeling your corporation.

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Book : Managing with Systems Thinking: Making Dynamics Work for You in Business Decision Making (1994)

Summary

From the Publisher:

The common scenario when a problem arises in an organization is that management find a solution that is localized and focused on solving that specific problem - if your warehouse is failing to deliver on time, you need to address the failure and put it right. However, the problem may re-occur if the management decisions that allowed the difficulty to arise in the first place are not retraced and examined.

Systems thinking is a framework that enables managers to exploit the commonsense, intuitive responses they may already follow when getting to the root of problems or inefficiencies in their organizations. By unravelling decision-making processes in a logical, systematic way, managers can address issues central to their organization, creating far-reaching benefits.

This text is a practical guide to this method, popularized by Peter Senge’s "The Fifth Discipline". It has a readable style, diagrams and anecdotal case studies that provide and explanation of the benefit and “how to” of systems thinking is a business environment. The text identifies areas of action and a seven-step approaaoch to systematic analysis.

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Book : Mastering Project Management: Applying Advanced Concepts of Systems Thinking, Control and Evaluation (2000)

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The Design-Build Institute of America

"This classic guide enables you to learn from the successes and failures of leading companies, explore new cost control and risk management techniques . . . and obtain the information needed to study for the PMI Certification exam."

Dr. Don Shanfelt, PMP "This book is more like an encyclopedia of project management than simply a textbook . . . Once you've been through this text, it will become a well-used reference on your bookshelf. Somewhere inside, Dr. Kerzner has addressed at least a portion of whatever you're looking for." E-Commerce PM for WorldCom, and adjunct IT professor in Colorado Springs Project management at its best a banner edition of the landmark reference This latest edition of the bestselling "bible" of project management brings outstanding coverage of the basic principles and concepts of project management right up to date with the latest developments in the field. Written by one of the best-known and respected authorities on the subject, it is essential reading for today s and tomorrow’s professionals involved in project management. It covers every key aspect of the subject, from the intricate framework of organizational behavior and structure that can determine project success to the planning, scheduling, and controlling processes vital to effective project management. New features include:

• Up-to-date coverage of global project management, the project management maturity model, "six sigma", and conflict resolution modes
• Dozens of real-world case studies and hundreds of sample problems across a wide range of industries

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Book : Rethinking the Fifth Discipline (1999)

Summary

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A purely financial and economic view of companies had its place when capital was a scarce resource and it was management's duty to optimize its use. But today's scarce resource is knowledge and knowledge is created by a company's human assets, not its capital assets.

This, now more than ever before, makes a company into a living work community, instead of a collection of assets on a balance sheet. It demands completely different management approaches and requires the language of biology, anthropology and psychology for further insights. And in leading today's modern corporation, management must think in terms of "learning" as the main process through which the company can flourish and hold its own in a competitive market.

This readable, thought-provoking and highly original book explores these themes and develops in depth what organizational learning means. It investigates the consequences of building a sustainable work community for human resource management, strategic planning and organizational structure. It makes a case for a thorough public debate on corporate governance and on the reallocation of power, both inside and around the company.

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Book : Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Manager’s Guide to Applying Systems (2002)

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Systems thinking can help you tame the complexity of real world problems by providing a structured way of balancing a broad, overall view with the selection of the right level of detail, truly allowing you to see the forest for the trees.

Only by taking a broad view can we avoid the twin dangers of a silo mentality - in which a fix ‘here’ simply shifts the problem to ‘there’ - and organisational myopia - in which a fix ‘now’ gives rise to a much bigger problem to fix ‘then’.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees will give you all the tools and techniques you need, with many practical examples as diverse as managing a busy back office, negotiating an outsourcing deal and formulating business strategy.

Dennis Sherwood was for twelve years a consulting partner with Coopers & Lybrand and was subsequently an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in London, a partner in Bossard Consultants, and Vice President of SRI Consulting. Educated at the universities of Cambridge, Yale and California, and a Sloan Fellow, with Distinction, of the London Business School, he is now the Managing Director of Organica Consulting which specialised in building competitive advantage through innovation whose clients include Thames Water, Nestle, National Grid, Pearson TV, The Defence Evaluation & Research Agency, Wedgewood, and Yorkshire Electricity. He is a is well-known on the conference circuit and is the author of five previous books including Smart Things to Know About Innovation and Unlock Your Mind.

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Book : Systems Engineering (1992)

Summary

From the publisher:

'Systems Engineering' focuses on systems methodology, design, and management.  The contents offer technical insight for professionals concerned with systems engineering and management and to students who need to master the steps to effective systems engineering. Throughout, the book emphasizes the process of systems engineering rather than the product of systems engineering, recognizing that proper attention to processes almost inevitably leads to higher quality products.

'Systems Engineering' addresses the fundamental considerations associated with the engineering of large scale systems. Divided into two sections, the first part deals with systems methodology, design and management including a detailed examination of operational and task level system quality assurance through configuration management, audits and reviews, standards and systems integration. The second part discusses a variety of systems design and management approaches, particularly those concerned with system effectiveness evaluation and the human role in systems.

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Book : Systems Thinking : Managing Chaos and Complexity (1999)

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In a nutshell, this book is about systems. This book is written for those thinkers and practitioners who have come to realize that while the whole is becoming more and more interdependent parts display choice and behave independently, and that paradoxes are the most potent challenge of emergent realities.

With a practical orientation and yet a profound theoretical depth, the book offers an operational handle on the whole by introducing an elaborate scheme called iterative design. The iterative design explicitly recognizes that choice is at the heart of human development. Development is the capacity to choose; design is a vehicle for enhancement of choice and holistic thinking. ‘Designers’, in this book, seek to choose rather than predict the future. They try to understand rational, emotional, and cultural dimensions of choice and to produce a design that satisfies a multitude of functions. They learn how to use what they already know and also about how to learn what they need to know.

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Book : The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook : Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization (1998)

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"The Fifth Discipline" revolutionized the practice of management by introducing the theory of learning organizations. Now, Dr Senge moves from the philosophical to the practical by answering the first question all lovers of the learning organization ask - what do they do on Monday morning?

This book is a pragmatic guide. It shows how to create an organization of learners where memories are brought to life, where collaboration is the life-blood of every endeavour and where tough questions are fearlessly asked. The stories in this book show that businesses, schools, agencies and even communities can undo their "learning disabilities" and achieve superior performance.

The book helps readers learn:

• why Royal Dutch/Shell now asks its managers,"What do you want on your epitaph?";
• how Ford Motor Company escaped from the measurement trap that threatens all quality initiatives;
• how Intel developed forms of "team learning" to dramatically cut cycle time and change their working relationship;
• how the 18,000 employees of the Australian Taxation Office took charge of their own learning to bust their tired, burdensome bureaucracy;
• why Du Pont uses a board game to understand the emotional element of plant maintenance problems;
• and how AT&T used the learning organization concept to begin its transformation from a corporation to a global community.

It isn't necessary to read the "The Fifth Discipline" to understand this book - summaries of Senge's key theoretical ideas are included in "The Fieldbook".

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Book : The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (Second Edition) (2006)

Summary

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Senge explains why the learning organization matters, provides an unvarnished summary of his management principals, offers some basic tools for practicing it, and shows what it’s like to operate under this system. The book’s concepts remain stimulating and relevant as ever.

Peter Senge, founder and director of the Society for Organisational Learning and senior lecturer at MIT, has found the means of creating a ‘learning organisation’. In The Fifth Discipline, he draws the blueprints for an organisation where people expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nutured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are contually learning together. The Fifth Discipline fuses these features together into a coherent body of theory and practice, making the whole of an organisation more effective than the sum of its parts.

Mastering the disciplines will:

• Reignite the spark of learning, driven by people focused on what truly matters to them.
• Bridge teamwork into macro-creativity.
• Free you from confining assumptions and mind-sets.
• Teach you to see the forest and the trees.
• End the struggle between work and family time.

The Fifth Discipline is a remarkable book that draws on science, spiritual values, psychology, the cutting edge of management thought and Senge’s work with leading companies which employ Fifth Discipline methods. Reading it provides a searching personal experience and a dramatic professional shift of mind.

This edition contains more than 100 pages of new material about how companies are actually using and benefiting from Fifth Discipline practices, as well as a new foreword from Peter Senge about his work with the Fifth Discipline over the last 15 years.

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