Viable System Model

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The Viable System Model ( VSM ; German  model of viable systems ) was first formulated in 1959 by Stafford Beer in his book Cybernetics and Management . It serves as a reference model for describing, diagnosing and structuring the management of organizations, which records the management functions at every organizational level, depicts the flow of information between the organizational levels and helps to ask targeted questions.

The VSM correlates with the paradigm of systems thinking , in which elements are connected to one another through relations and influence one another.

The law of viability

In order for a system to be considered viable, it must be able to adapt to external and internal changes. It has to learn to perceive, learn from changes, utilize them in a meaningful way, and develop independently. It must not give up its own identity.

S. Beer formulates viability as follows: The goal must be survival rather than profit maximization. It is not the leadership of people, but the directing or controlling and regulating entire organizations in their environment that is decisive. Not a few people manage, but all of them have to perform certain functions of management.

Instead of managing everything centrally or from one person, real information networks are created that enable real self-organization so that everyone can independently take care of everything that is necessary in their area and make decisions. With the Viable System Model, Beer has organized people, instruments and tasks in such a way that everyone can rely on the necessary orientation, information and perspectives.

Basic structure

Exemplary representation of the viable system model with two operative 1er systems
Exemplary representation of the viable system model with two operative 1er systems.

According to Beer, every organization, every organism can be mapped using VSM, so VSM is a universally applicable framework concept. The main focus, however, is on the company; such is divided into five subsystems of a viable system:

  • System 1: Production, the operational units (value-adding activities), these units must be viable for themselves.
  • System 2: coordination (of the value-adding systems 1), place of self-organization of the systems 1 with one another.
  • System 3: Optimization (use of resources in the here and now), System 3 *: Selective, additional information acquisition on the state of the operational systems (audit).
  • System 4: Future analysis and planning (resource planning for there and then), the world of options
It deals with the future and the environment of the overall system. There are two types of environment to be distinguished.
  1. The accepted environment of the system (the environment of the overall system, which, so to speak, is acknowledged and from which reactive behavior is derived, e.g. threats & risks, market changes, etc.)
  2. The problematic environment of the system (the environment that is to be actively changed and shaped by the overall system, e.g. in which innovations are sought).
System 4 has certain functions of bars, but actually goes far beyond this advisory information processing, which is why it is also located directly on the command axis. Typical functions are research and development, strategic marketing, market research, strategy development, corporate planning, marketing and communication, employee development, etc. System four ideally not only restricts itself to observing market developments, but also actively tries to do so through extensive communication processes with system three influence.
  • System 5: The highest decision-making unit (fundamental decisions and interaction of system 4 with system 3), if systems 3 and 4 cannot agree on a common course, system 5 makes the final decision. If system 5 approves the decision of systems 3 and 4, no intervention is necessary. The decision is not an intervention. In a system, system 5 is the top decision-making level with the main tasks of making logical conclusions and observing systems 3 and 4.

Stafford Beer wrote: “The purpose of a system is what it does. And what the viable system does is done by System One. ”- I recognize the purpose or use of a system from System 1.

At each organizational level, systems 3, 4 and 5 are assigned to the control level (synonymous with the area of ​​responsibility of management); the hierarchically lower operational level then again consists of a control level with systems 3, 4 and 5 and a next lower operational level. The Viable System Model thus has the same basic structure on all of its levels ( recursion ).

The St. Gallen management model is, in a certain sense, a clear simplification of the VSM, because the functional systems 3, 4 and 5 in the control level of the VSM were adopted as operational, strategic and normative management. However, many details were neglected, for example monitoring and auditing as tasks of system 3.

commitment

Chile

VSM has already been used several times in practice, including at the national level by Chile's elected President Salvador Allende . The Cybersyn project tried to control the central administration economy in real time using computers.

When the truck drivers went on strike in the 1973 coup in Chile , Allende is said to have been able to maintain the country's supply of all important goods with the help of VSM. Real-time economic planning should ensure funding for Allende's ambitious social program.

Allende's reign came to an abrupt end with the CIA infiltration into Chile , the Augusto Pinochet military coup and Allende's suicide before the VSM's effectiveness could be tested in the long term.

Further development

The VSM approach was further developed into management cockpits (operations center, operations center, ...) with real-time information, simulation models, personal and project databases as well as databases on decisions made including the assumptions and expectations made therein.

literature

  • Stafford Beer: Brain of the Firm . 2nd Edition. John Wiley & Sons, 1995, ISBN 0-471-94839-X .
  • Raul Espejo, Roger Harnden: The Viable System Model: Interpretations and Applications of Stafford Beer's VSM . John Wiley & Sons, 1992, ISBN 0-471-93731-2
  • Wolfgang Lassl: The Viability of Organizations Vol. 3. Designing and Changing Organizations, Springer Nature, 2020, ISBN 978-3-030-25853-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mark Lambertz: Freedom and responsibility for intelligent organizations . 1st edition. Düsseldorf, ISBN 978-3-00-052559-9 , pp. 137 .
  2. ↑ Christian Scholz: Strategic Organization Multiperspectivity and Virtuality: Multiperspectivity and Virtuality . 2nd edition Verlag Moderne Industrie, Landsberg / Lech 2000.
  3. ^ Jon Walker: The Viable Systems Model Guide 3e . esrad.org.uk, 2006; Retrieved December 13, 2011.
  4. ^ A b Stafford Beer: The Heart of Enterprise . John Wiley & Sons, 1995, p. 227.
  5. ↑ Fredmund Malik: Strategy of the management of complex systems . 6th edition Haupt, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 2000.
  6. ^ Stafford Beer: Diagnosing the System for Organizations . 1990 edition, John Wiley & Sons, 1985, p. 128.
  7. ↑ Michael Frahm: Cybernetic building project management - design of viable building structures based on the Viable System Model . Edition 2015, Bod, p. 20.