This pre-recorded course of 1h 49 minutes plus exercises originally took a 6h day to work through.
This course provides learners with an overview of the Viable System Model covering:
- Overview of VSM
- Basic modelling using VSM
If you don’t know how to design an organisation to deliver your strategy, or how structural change happens in organisations, how effective can you be in implementing your strategy? For senior managers and aspiring senior managers, the organisation is the principal tool at their disposal. So, understanding how organisations function as systems is a critically important skill. These courses will provide students with practical skills in using VSM to diagnose organisational issues and to design solutions.
For senior managers and aspiring senior managers, the organisation is the principal tool at their disposal. So, understanding how organisations function as systems is a critically important skill.
VSM is a model of what any complex system needs in order to be viable – capable of adapting itself to changing circumstances and is the best indicator of any organisation’s chances of surviving or avoiding crisis.
The full VSM course will take you through using VSM to diagnose and design organisational systems of any type or scale and developing that skill starts with knowing how to model a system using VSM which is what we’ll cover in this 1 day course.
The course follows a structured approach, with a series of steps that take groups through the required concepts and modelling in easy stages.
We work on a case example to model a hospital using VSM. The case is drawn from real life.
Objectives
By the end of this training, you should understand
- how to model an organisation using VSM including:
- the operating structure
- coordination
- performance and resource
- monitoring
- intelligence
- governance
and the importance of each of those
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.