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The most difficult questions facing organizations today do not have scientifically or mathematically provable solutions. Many answers that do exist depend upon time and circumstance.
Systems Architecting of Organizations: Why Eagles Can't Swim tackles a very difficult dilemma: how do even highly respected organizations maintain their vaunted excellence, accommodate the new world of global communications, transportation, economics and multinational security, and still survive against stiff competition already in place? As they are finding out, depending upon the circumstances, the demands of excellence on the one hand, and of change on the other, can be cruelly irreconcilable.
This book does not just describe business strengths and weaknesses. First, it identifies potential weaknesses, then offers guidelines and insights to address them. Its approach is architectural and heuristic. Second, this book is about maintaining success in a dynamic world, not about achieving it in a static one; few are clear on what to do and not to do in the face of major change.
Systems Architecting of Organizations: Why Eagles Can't Swim helps professionals gain new perspectives when reviewing their own organizations and to see problems and opportunities previously not apparent.
Features
PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION
Why Eagles Can't Swim
TREATING ORGANIZATIONS AS SYSTEMS
The Unusual Field of Complex Systems
Emergent Capabilities and Values of Systems and Organizations
AN ARCHITECT'S PERSPECTIVE OF THE WORLD OUTSIDE
The Market Place and Other Battlegrounds
"Delicate Balancing" in and by the United States Government
INTERNAL CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Unstated Assumptions and Other Subliminals Different Structures, Different Rules, and, Consequently, Different Capabilities
Decision Making in Complex Organizations
THE FOUNDATIONS OF SYSTEMS AND ORGANIZATIONAL ARCHITECTING
The Context and Use of System Insights and Metaphors
Architecting A Reorganization and Forming its Architecting Team
STAY THE COURSE OR CHANGE IT?
The Why and When of Architectural Change
The What and How of Radical Change
APPENDICES
Propositions for Organizational Architecting
A Listing of Insights
Annotated List of Citations
INDEX