A systemigram process model portrays a system under observation (SuO) e.g. product introduction process. The SuO is described by text that is structured according to systemic principles. Systemigrams now exist that describe many aspects of the project management lifecycle based on collaborative researches that the Systems Engineering Group has carried out with technology-based companies. The seminar will try to set the systemigram in the context of other forms of diagrams, e.g. Inductive Systems Diagrams, Data Flow, Entity Relationship Models, as something peculiarly useful for depicting human activity systems. It will briefly describe the BSSM that is used to define the SuO’s, produce the structured text, and thence the systemigram. It will also describe supporting methods and tools that utilise the systemigrams to facilitate process ownership and improvement.  It will report on the success of this approach to improving productivity in various kinds of capital goods manufacture, based on the collaborative researches. The most recent project is with Rolls-Royce and some of their suppliers, which is an attempt to construct an optimal product introduction process for the extended enterprise that builds commercial jet engines. This started October 1997 and the seminar will attempt to give an overview of the complexity of the problem and how it is planned to go about achieving our objectives.
 
 

An understanding of the process should inform the next crucial stage: systems design. If this OTSL is truly important then our current work on interface and usability design is fundamentally lacking. It is all based on an implicit assumption that is wrong - that users learn about a new piece of software entirely on their own and hence it is the job of the usability
designers to help that process (thus online help, manuals etc.) But what would happen if we designed systems that not only acknowledged that many people make use of OTSL, but actually contained functionalities which helped that process?

This approach draws on work in CSCW but also has implications for the field. In the context of OTSL, EVERY computer application is in some sense occasionally a CSCW application as people collaborate around the system in
order to cope, learn and do their work.
 
 

This talk reports on the first year of the Software as a Business Asset (SABA) project, conducted by the University of Durham and the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, and part of the EPSRC's Systems Engineering
for Business Process Change (SEBPC) programme.

We have found that the problem of legacy systems is not just a technical one, and thus that solutions must combine tools to facilitate organisational change with software engineering practice. We have developed a method to solve these problems, based on a dynamic inter-relationship between organisational and technical change processes.  We have also
created tools for the co-development, by all stakeholders, of a number of scenarios for the future of the organisation; and then of more detailed technical support for those possible futures. An example of the form of the technical change approach will be given.