SINFONIE

SYSTEMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE NATURE OF FACTORS INFLUENCING ORGANISATIONS

AND NETWORKS IN THEIR ENVIRONMENT

Foreword
The nature of the times we live in has imposed systemic thinking on us. This has been partly due to the disturbing and sometimes painful realisation that reality is far more complex, dynamic and, accordingly, unpredictable than our need for planning, control and security would prefer. Systemic thinking is a continuation of existing systematic planning procedures whose causality based structures are unfortunately inclined to accord insufficient consideration to collateral effects, feedback, time lags etc. This insight is also beginning to take hold in corporate and project management. Purely problem solving oriented thinking is being increasingly supplanted by a systemic, networked mode of looking at things. Individual companies or projects can no longer concentrate on the achievement of their own goals in isolation. Instead, they must see themselves as one instrument in a large orchestra. A (simplified) historical parallel with Columbus and Henry the Navigator will perhaps help to make clear where the difference lies between a "linear" and a "systemic" manager. Columbus used his connections with kings, wealthy financiers, the Church, scholars and seafarers to facilitate a voyage to India in person. Believing that he had reached it, he personally at the head of his project team planted the flag of the Spanish crown in the sand (project goal achieved?). Henry the Navigator created a crucial basis for the development of the Portuguese empire but never went to sea himself (he was prone to acute seasickness). Instead, he set up a house (an "interface") in Sagres, Portugal, where, as manager of a joint effort, he brought together the best cartographers, mariners, astronomers and engineers of his country. Together, they set up such favourable conditions for the system "Portuguese seafaring" that the discovery of new lands and maritime routes became possible and, indeed, probable. In this case in point open and process oriented goals were achieved by steady improvement of system conditions while Columbus pursued a single set project goal as an individual, "heroic" expert.

SINFONIE is a registered trademark of Dr. Hejo Heussen and Dirk Jung, c/o denkmodell Dialog Design Mariannenplatz 23, D - 10997 Berlin, Fon +49(0)30-690 48 80, Fax +49(0)30-690 48 899, berlin@denkmodell.de, www.denkmodell.de

 From insight to change

Given this insight there remains the question as to what instruments are available to analyse and influence complex interrelationships. In SINFONIE denkmodell provides a tried and tested toolbox. This is a training and planning technique that, like all successful methods, is the child of many parents, among them "Networked Thinking" (eg. Frederic Vester, Probst & Gomez), "Mind Mapping" (eg. Tony Buzan) and "System Management" (eg. Turnheim). denkmodell has put together these individual instruments and approaches into a sequence of practical steps for thinking and working, has tested them in numerous seminars and workshops in a context of international cooperation and organisational development and has improved them with its own methodological developments.

The 12 basic steps

12. Strategies by changing the relations among the factors 11. Strategies by changing the factors 1. Vision Objective Problem

2. Search question

3. System Landscape
4. Selection of

factors 10. Scenarios 9. Interpretation of the system 8. Axis diagram 7. Effect structure 5. Definition of factors 6. Influence matrix

The above mentioned "project" Discovery of a Sea Route to India will serve as an example. Let us imagine that Columbus and the other two captains of his expedition had taken a trip to Henry the Navigator's institute in Sagres and learned to plan their project with SINFONIE there. Columbus and his team initially wanted to start off (Step 1) by tackling the problem ("Sea Route to India is unknown") or their goal ("Sea Route to India Discovered") but were then encouraged to expand their view of the system by devising a vision. After a certain amount of time and trouble they hit on a formula: "Ships loaded with Indian spices and fabrics anchor in Spanish ports and their captains praise our names." Next they asked themselves what factors (Step 2) would influence the realisation of their vision. They wrote down their associations in the form of a so-called "mind map" which helped them to capture the complexity and diversity of their ideas in structured form on paper. They called the result a system landscape (Step 3). This comprised many large and small factors including physical factors (wind and weather) and active institutions or people. On the basis of experience, common sense and curiosity they made a selection from these factors (Step 4) which
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they believed would adequately describe the system: clients, funding, seafaring knowledge, equipment, personnel, winds and currents, the Church and Columbus himself. Once Columbus and his two captains had defined these factors more closely (Step 5), they related them to one another by attempting to estimate the influence of each factor on the others (Step 6). They did this with the aid of a matrix in which 3 stands for strong, 2 for medium and 1 for weak influence. A zero (0) means that no direct influence is ascertainable. The result was an influence matrix in the following form:

Influence

on:

A 2 3 1 0 0 2 3 11

B 3 2 3 0 0 1 0 9

C 2 0 0 1 1 3 2 9

D 1 3 2 1 2 3 0 12

E 0 2 3 2 2 3 0 12

F 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 2

G 3 1 3 2 2 3 2 16

H 1 0 2 0 0 0 1 4

of: A Clients B Funding C Seafaring knowledge D Equipment E Personnel F Wind + currents G Columbus H Church Passive total

Active total 10 8 15 9 5 8 13 7

Amongst other things the matrix showed that seafaring knowledge had the strongest influence on the system (active total = 15), followed by Columbus himself (active total = 13) who in turn was most exposed to all the influences of the system (passive total = 16). To visualise the structure of relationships they drew up an "effect structure" (Step 7)
Clients Equipment

Church Columbus

Wind+ currents Funding Seafaring knowledge Personnel

where the broad arrows stand for a strong influence, the less broad arrows for a medium influence and the thin arrows for a weak influence. Using the pointer they could now trace what direct and indirect influences, eg. poor equipment, would have on the other factors of the system. In doing this, they discovered, amongst other things, a pronounced feedback loop with the factor "funding".
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For the purpose of further analysis of their system they entered the influence matrix values in an axis diagram (Step 8). While the effect structure showed the planning team how the influence streams ran in the system and where they had direct and indirect effects, the axis diagram gave them additional information, namely the relative strength of the influence of each factor in comparison with the other factors and the relative degree of its sensitivity to the system. A cross through the axes helped to subdivide the factors roughly into sluggish (bottom left), active (bottom right), critical (top right) and passive (top left).
Sensitivity List of elements 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Clients Funding Seafaring knowledge Equipment Personnel Wind + current Columbus Church

Influence

Now they were in a position to make a systemic interpretation (Step 9) of the "project" Discovery of a Sea Route to India and to develop scenarios ("What will happen if .?) (Step 10). Finally, they produced a project planning matrix deriving and representing both cooperation strategies with the Church, financiers and clients and other significant interventions in the system together with their desirable and undesirable effects, activities and indicators.

Final remarks
Of course, not only projects and problems of joint development efforts can be planned and "played through" with the aid of SINFONIE. SINFONIE is an open-ended toolbox that can be also be used in abridged or simplified form or in combination with other methods. Major corporations like SwissAir, Hewlett Packard and Allianz have used parts of this technique in strategic planning groups for long periods. Although with SINFONIE we are always dealing with an artificial slice taken out of reality and with subjective estimates, this instrument helps us to create a cognitive model of systemic relationships as we perceive them and in accordance with which we act. With SINFONIE even complex strategic and operational plans of the kind familiar from "classical" planning techniques can be devised. The method also stimulates thinking beyond the limits of our own influence, particularly when we "think ourselves into the system" as a factor in it. It might even occur to us that the term "System Management" is a contradiction in itself because it contains the illusion that systems can be managed.
SINFONIE is a registered trademark of Dr. Hejo Heussen and Dirk Jung, c/o denkmodell Dialog Design Mariannenplatz 23, D - 10997 Berlin, Fon +49(0)30-690 48 80, Fax +49(0)30-690 48 899, berlin@denkmodell.de, www.denkmodell.de