Most organisations I work with know something isn't quite right. The same problems keep coming back, people in different parts of the organisation describe it in ways that don't match, and nobody has the time, budget or appetite for a consultant to come in and tell them what they already half know.
…As I mentioned last week, and as you can guess from the above photo, I've been in Toronto for the past few days. I'm on my way home, overnight, via Dublin.
It's a long way to come for a couple of days of unconferencing and a bit of sightseeing either side, but it's been worth it. There's nothing quite like the Mozilla community, and the #MozAlums crew are fantastic.
…Photo taken by me in Bluebell Wood, Morpeth
While I haven't got ages to write one today, I decided over the weekend that I would get back into the habit of writing weekly updates. I haven't written a weeknote since archiving my blog and spinning up Substrate.
…In my first note on OrgLens I asked whether an AI agent could diagnose an organisation using Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM). The answer was yes, more or less.
The reports were written for someone like me using terms such as System 3*, algedonic channels, and requisite variety. Those terms can be useful if you know VSM, but most people who might benefit from an organisational health check do not, and shouldn't need to.
…Systems thinking is a way of looking at organisations as sets of connected parts rather than as collections of individuals or departments. The Viable System Model, or VSM, is one approach within it. It asks whether an organisation has the parts it needs to keep going: people doing the work, ways of coordinating that work, checks on whether the work is happening, people looking ahead, and a way of agreeing what the organisation is for.
…Most organisations don't work systemically. They deal with problems one part at a time, and then are surprised when they find the same issues returning time and again.
For mission-driven organisations such as charities, co-ops or public service institutions, it can be hard to picture what working systemically would even look like. Instead of a bunch of theory, people first need a quick sense of systems practice, in terms that make sense for their own organisation.
…After a great Day 1 I had high hopes for the second day of SCiO's annual conference. Although the opening panel session on Systems Thinking in Government inexplicably didn't get beyond introductions and positioning statements in the time allotted, the rest of the day was fantastic.
…About 10 days ago, I discovered that SCiO's annual conference was happening this week down in Cranfield. After checking that I had air cover from my better half, I booked my place and so I find myself down here after a ~4 hour drive from Northumberland.
…I'm not sure how I've only just heard about it (perhaps because I forgot to renew my SCiO membership) but the SysPrac26 conference is the week after next. I've decided go, rearranging my existing commitments on Monday 21st and Tuesday 22nd September.
…On the afternoon of Wednesday 25th November (UK time) I'm going to run a free session based around Sightlines. I'm going to keep it to 10 places to keep it participatory and conversational. It's a bit of an experiment.
…I’ve just realised that yesterday’s post about consequentialism is closely related to something I studied as part of my postgraduate Systems Thinking qualification: Critical Systems Heuristics, or CSH. The 2x2 grid I shared in that post was a way of resisting the lazy claim that a system is justified merely because it “works”. CSH provides a more disciplined way to ask what is hidden behind that claim.
…Tom is currently on holiday, but I'm still sending him stuff like the above diagram as we build FIELD STATION in an intentional way. So I should say, right off the bat, that this is my view of what we're doing.
I've been collecting writing about using AI with the Viable System Model (VSM) in this Are.na collection, and published an essay entitled Governance Is Not a Dashboard. This note is an attempt to work in the open, thinking about how to apply the VSM to build a sustainable business where the "requisite variety" can, in part, be met by AI agents.
…Andrew Curry summarises and adds to Art Kleiner's post about things we already know are going to happen in 2030. Kleiner channels Pierre Wack's idea of the “predetermined element” using the example of the River Ganges:
…When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.
– Ilya Prigogine
One of the advantages and drawbacks of having studied Philosophy, History, Education, and Systems Thinking while having a background in technology is that you realise that everything... is just made up. Not just in a Steve Jobs "everything around you around was made by someone no smarter than you" kind of way, but in a William James "blooming, buzzing confusion" kind of way.
…When reading this post I couldn't help but think about Stafford Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) which I think is the perfect fit for an organisation made up of humans and AI agents. I've written about VSM numerous times as part of my postgraduate studies into Systems Thinking.
…I attended a workshop on May 1st, 2026 with Annalise Lewis of Manifesto which was so good I followed-up with her for some 1:1 coaching. What follows are my notes from that initial workshop, which I scribbled down in a notebook.
…It was a couple of months ago, so I can't remember who told me about TRIZ:
TRIZ (/trɪz/; Russian: теория решения изобретательских задач, romanized: teoriya resheniya izobretatelskikh zadach, lit. 'theory of inventive problem solving') is a methodology which combines an organized, systematic method of problem-solving with analysis and forecasting techniques derived from the study of patterns of invention in global patent literature. The development and improvement of products and technologies in accordance with TRIZ are guided by the laws of technical systems evolution. In English, TRIZ is typically rendered as the theory of inventive problem solving.
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