VSM

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A Viable System Perspective on Enterprise Architecture Management

A number of approaches towards Enterprise Architecture (EA) management is proposed in literature, differing in the underlying understanding of the EA as well as in the description of the function for performing EA management. These plurality of methods and models should be interpreted as an indicator of the low maturity of the research area. In contrast, some researchers see it as inevitable consequence of the diversity of the enterprises under consideration. Staying to this interpretation, we approach the topic of EA management from a cybernetic point of view. Thereby, we elicit constituents, which should be considered in every EA management function based on a viable system perspective on the topic. From this perspective, we further revisit selected EA management approaches and show to which extent they allude to the viable system nature of the EA.

Beer’s Viable System Model and Luhmann’s Communication Theory: ‘Organizations’ from the Perspective of Meta?Games

Beyond the descriptions of ‘viability’ provided by Beer’s Viable System Model, Maturana’s autopoietic theory or Luhmann’s communication theory, questions remain as to what ‘viability’ means across different contexts. How is ‘viability’ affected by the Internet and the changing information environments in a knowledge?based economy? For Luhmann, social systems like businesses are coordination systems that do not ‘live’ as viable systems but operate because they relieve human beings from environmental complexity. We situate Beer’s concept of viability with Luhmann’s through analyzing the way that ‘decisions’ shape organizations in an information environment. Howard’s (1971) meta?game analysis enables us to consider the ‘viable system’ as an ‘agent system’ producing utterances as moves in a discourse game within the context of its information environment. We discuss how this approach can lead to an accommodation between Beer’s practical orientation and Luhmann’s sociological critique where the relationship between viability, decision and information can be further explored.

Reinterpreting TOGAF’s Enterprise Architecture Principles Using a Cybernetic Lens

In the literature, there are many definitions of Enterprise Architecture (EA), but most of them have three items in common: elements, relationships and principles. Among these, principles represent an essential element in the definition of EA, and some researchers posit that they are the main element in this definition. However, despite the recent advances in defining enterprise architecture principles (EAPs), this notion is suffering from the lack of a theoretical foundation that provides a logical framework for defining them. Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) and its application to IT governance, the Viable Governance Model (VGM), have shown to be comprehensive blueprints for designing viable organizations and IT governance arrangements, respectively. Similarly, in recent realizations of EA, the design of the whole organization, and not just the IT, is brought into consideration. Therefore, this paper aims to establish whether the laws and principles of cybernetics, especially those embodied in the VSM and the VGM, can provide a sound theoretical basis for deriving EA principles. This paper investigates the principles defined in the Open Group’s TOGAF based on the theoretical concepts drawn from the VSM/VGM and cybernetics more broadly. This investigation demonstrates that the principles in TOGAF can be derived from the laws and principles of cybernetics.