A Set of Conventions, a Model: An Application of Stafford Beer’s Viable Systems Model to the Strategic Planning Process

Abstract

In contemplating better ways to manage, Stafford Beer says the big problem is that you are not determining absolute facts: you are establishing a set of conventions. Hence his view, that a model is neither true nor false: it is more or less useful. And while this paper suggests Beer’s Viable Systems Model (VSM) is overwhelmingly more, rather than less useful, that the VSM and its founding theories are virtually unknown at the level of everyday management begs the question, why? Over time we have learned about the usefulness of the VSM compared to other management theories, when used in the contest of the organisational strategic planning process. Thus through a sequence of diagrams based on Beer’s original drawings, we show how the VSM came to underpin a process for strategic planning in one organisation. The paper has three aims; to attach an everyday ‘common speak’ understanding to some of Beer’s work, to demonstrate how we have learned to appreciate the usefulness of the VSM and its associated diagrams and conventions and to suggest a link between the Action Research change methodology and Beer’s work.