UK Chapter

Practitioners of systems thinking use the viable systems model (VSM), the minimum combination of systems laws to describe the necessary functions and conditions required for any organisation to independently survive and thrive within a changing environment by understanding and reacting to complexity inside and outside the organisation.

Existing viable systems can be diagnosed using VSM to identify  weaknesses predict issues and risks. New systems can be designed using VSM to improve efficiency, effectiveness and the ability to cope with complexity, thereby increasing the chances of surviving in a dynamic environment.

Two systems thinking practitioners, Dr. Niki Jobson (DSTL) and Jonathan
Higginbottom from Southampton City Council will discuss the “why, how and what” to use VSM in your work.

The talk is free and anyone interested in systems thinking and systems engineering is invited to attend

A clear and rigorous description of an organisation’s business processes is a key prerequisite of many outputs in the Systems Engineering field and related disciplines. Bristol Local Group is delighted to welcome Martyn Ould to discuss the novel Riva method. Unlike many of the alternatives, Riva combines a rigorous notation with a practical analytical method, one that is currently being used in parts of the Defence and Research community to good effect.

With concurrency and collaboration at its heart, Riva is grounded in organisational theory rather than driven by the constraints of software modelling tools. It uses business concepts to describe businesses, rather than distorting the world to fit inappropriate software concepts. That said, it has strong formal underpinnings that ensure rigour and transparency in the resulting descriptions, more so than many other approaches that come from software engineering.

Martyn is the author of Business Process Management – a rigorous approach. During a varied career in Software Development, including teaching at Oxford University and University of West of England, Martyn became increasingly involved in Business Process Management, applying Riva in assignments with major organisations such as GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and the Electricity Supply Board of Ireland, and with both national and local government. Now pretending to be retired, he was a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Chartered Engineer.

Agenda

Moving forward from ASEC 2018

Types of service contracts, lifecycles etc.

- Updates to draft handbook

Bristol Local Group welcomes John Lomax, from Airbus, to kick off the first workshop in 2019. Enterprises are highly complex systems of people and technologies that are entities in their own right, which are prone to gross structural inefficiencies and failures to the extent of causing great societal harm and economic loss. Using the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) Programme as an example, John invites the Bristol Local Group to discuss and identify Systems Engineering approaches that work and areas where improvement and innovation is needed. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A and open discussion session.

This talk was first given to North West Group on 4^th December 2018.

John is a Programme Systems Engineer with over 30 years of experience gained mainly across the Aerospace, Defence, and Air-traffic Management Domains, and currently works for Communications, Intelligence & Security (CIS), AIRBUS, and previously at the SESAR Joint Undertaking. He has recently returned from a 7-year expatriation providing direct Customer Liaison to the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU) European Commission Agency of the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) Modernization Programme located in Brussels Belgium. He is an INCOSE CSEP and INCOSE CAR.