Management Practice

Overview

A common thread for this area of interest is 'Management Practice' with a bit of 'systemic leadership' included.

Underpinning all of the management practice are the Living Systems: Person and Social System. Understanding these systems is a critical element to understanding management practice.

Management Practice

Management Practice comes from a number of areas of management theory. The authors that I've been following are:

  • Peter Drucker (Activities of a Manager)
  • Michael E. Porter (Value System and Value Chain)
  • Jay Galbraith (Team model based upon an adapted STAR Model)
  • Russell Ackoff (Systemic Management Practices)
  • Edgar Schein (Leadership and Culture)

The following management models are being integrated into the Enterprise as a System of Systems

Application of Management Practice

Management Practice applies to the following areas

  • Managing any team in any organization
  • Establishing and managing any transformation or change programme
  • Management practice also applies to any project

Agile Management Practice

Agile management practices can also be applied to any of the above areas.

The agile management practices have the following benefits:

  • Ensuring that each person has a voice and is heard (daily standups)
  • Ensuring that each person takes responsibility for their own work and commitments (taking responsibility for work)
  • Frequent show and tell (visible progress)
  • Fail fast and short feedback cycles (rapid changes / improvements).

Management Systems

The Management System brings a focus on the application of management practice within an organization. The management system is based upon the social system concepts.

The managers within an enterprise are responsible for the design, development and implementation of a management system that meets the requirements of the various external management system standards. All people within an enterprise participate in the management system.

The management system for an Enterprise as a System of Systems is created using two system types all based upon social system:

The set of management system standards require that a set of capabilities are established and implemented within an organization.

Integrated Management Systems

An Integrated Management System can be architected and designed to meet multiple harmonised external standards. The following is a current set of related management system standards:

Management System External Standards

A big picture of the Integrated Management System is shown below:

Three Gaps to instutionalize an integrated Management System

An Integrated Management System benefits by taking an architectural approach to the design and implementation of integrated management systems. When understanding that the various external standards can be considered as requirements placed on an organization, then the entire systems life cycle can be used to establish and maintain the Integrated Management System.

See the Enterprise as a System of Systems for additional information.

Enterprise (SoS)