More of middlespace – Jeremy Aarons on keynote by Bob Galliers:
Galliers presentation touched on many issues of relevance to my work. In particular he talked specifically about the importance of both a top-down and a bottom-up approach to the development of socio-technical systems. I took his major point to be that a top-down strategy, involving standardised IT/IS methodology, is “necessary but not sufficient” for successful implementation. Here we are in total agreement.
However, I was worried by the way Galliers characterised bottom-up processes as “informal” and “emergent”. The worry is that this seems to imply that these processes are unpredictable and unmanageable, since informal seems to imply that they are not formally understandable, and emergence brings in the idea that these processes are somewhat mysterious.
But I think that the real challenge of knowledge management (or whatever you’d prefer to call it) is precisely how best to manage these bottom-up processes, within the specifications set by the top-down imperatives. Thus characterising them as “informal” and “emergent” really defeats the point – the real challenge is to explore the bottom-up processes in detail, to try to formalise them, and to explore the way they manifest in the broader organizational context. It is on this point that Galliers claimed we were in violent agreement, but I still feel that he underestimates the power of the rhetoric he uses in this case.
I wouldn’t say that the bottom-up processes are predictable and manageable. For sure we can understand them and can try steering in a particular direction, but I guess this would require redefining what “prediction” is and how “management” works. Thinking about sense-making and releasing the energy of others…
Also, Jeremy, what is the point in formalising bottom-up processes?
Tags: emergence, leadership, middlespaceArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/12/10.html#a1452; comments are here.
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