This pre-recorded course of 1h 36 minutes plus exercises originally took a 6h day to work through.
VSM4 is one of two courses that are designed for more advanced practitioners and covers:
- Understanding and managing organisational complexity using the Viable System Model
- Modelling multi-organisational systems using VSM
Organisations exist to help us to do things that are more complex than we can carry out on our own, so understanding how they do that is critical in both problem solving and design. Complexity is now widely cited as a major management challenge and VSM was ahead in recognising this as a pivotal issue long before other approaches.
All organisations exist in relationships with other organisations so understanding how to use VSM in a multi-organisational system for both design and diagnosis can be critical.
Objectives
You will cover:
- Understanding organisations as ‘complexity absorbers’ or ‘complexity creators’
- Understanding Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety and how that relates to VSM
- Variety as: Number of connections / Difference / Volume / Rate
- Modelling variety balances
- Modelling homeostats
- VSM as a set of balanced tensions
- Spotting variety imbalances
- Tracking variety imbalances through the system
Trainer
These courses are delivered by Patrick Hoverstadt, author of ‘Fractal Organization’ ,which is a standard text on VSM.
Patrick is a leading consultant and internationally recognised expert in systemic approaches to organisation design, strategy, and transformation, with over 30 years of experience. Founder of Fractal Ltd, he has worked across private, public, and third sectors—delivering complex organisation restructures, national-level diagnoses, and innovative strategic models. He is co-developer of the “Patterns of Strategy” methodology and a specialist in the Viable System Model. Patrick has advised major firms such as BAE Systems, Siemens, and Rolls Royce, as well as government bodies and global NGOs. A prolific thought leader, author, and educator, he has contributed to postgraduate programmes at ten universities worldwide and served as Chair of SCiO, the UK’s largest systems practitioner community.
This material is Copyright and should not be used without discussions with the trainer.