Allenna Leonard
Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) is a useful template to design and/or diagnose organisational structures and communications. It describes five interlinked management functions that any viable system—from an amoeba to a corporation—must accomplish.
New users often attempt to model their own complex organisations as a first effort and may become confused. This workshop offers participants who are new to the VSM an experience in diagnosing and discussing decisions to be made by a small family company with several products and services that operate in different seasons.
This workshop engages participants in a role-playing exercise as managers discussing the issues of a small business, Camping and More, from the perspective of each of the five management functions in Stafford Beer’s VSM, based on a one-page case description of the business and a list of suggested questions regarding each of the five management systems.
Hand-outs provided.
KEYWORDS: Viable System Model, Experiential Workshop, Small Business Case Study
RSD TOPIC: Modelling, Methods and Methodology
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