Learning For Action A Short Definitive Account Of Soft Systems Methodology And Its Use For Practitioners Teachers And Students

Download or read book Learning For Action written by Peter Checkland and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-04-02 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the father of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), Peter Checkland, comes a new, accessible text which clearly and concisely looks at SSM. The book leaves out all of the development detail and historical/intellectual material which can be found in Checkland’s other classic works, but contains the practical essentials that will allow teachers to teach SSM accurately and students to learn it with real understanding. Features: · Short and definitive account of SSM containing the practical essentials. · Written with great clarity and presented in a reader-friendly way. · Contains examples of SSM in action. · Includes cases.

Download or read book Systems Concepts in Action written by Bob Williams and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-25 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit explores the application of systems ideas to investigate, evaluate, and intervene in complex and messy situations. The text serves as a field guide, with each chapter representing a method for describing and analyzing; learning about; or changing and managing a challenge or set of problems. The book is the first to cover in detail such a wide range of methods from so many different parts of the systems field. The book's Introduction gives an overview of systems thinking, its origins, and its major subfields. In addition, the introductory text to each of the book's three parts provides background information on the selected methods. Systems Concepts in Action may serve as a workbook, offering a selection of tools that readers can use immediately. The approaches presented can also be investigated more profoundly, using the recommended readings provided. While these methods are not intended to serve as "recipes," they do serve as a menu of options from which to choose. Readers are invited to combine these instruments in a creative manner in order to assemble a mix that is appropriate for their own strategic needs.

Download or read book Action Learning and Action Research written by Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These songlines’sing' into history the personal story of Action Learning and Research (ALAR) by an ALAR founder, Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt. Revealed through a collection of interviews conducted by scholars from six countries, these engaging, informative, intimate stories record her ALAR journey to document history and, more importantly, to help develop skills and innovation in workplace/community and lifelong learning for everyone, including the disadvantaged and poorest. Reviewers comments: This book is a must read for action researchers of all stripes and experience levels. Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, a principal architect of ALAR who has pushed the boundaries of AR conceptually and methodologically, has now created a unique book built out of orchestrated interviews that provide us with much insight into who she is, why and how to learn from her, and invitation to collaborate in further developing our practice for the benefit of everyone. Davydd Greenwood, PhD, Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology, Cornell University, USA.

Download or read book The Golden Thread written by Fuad Udemans and published by Author House. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an account of a ten-year experiment, whereby the scientist became an entrepreneur so as to experience his own theoretical model applied in a live social system (society). Profit motives and the clinical nature of science became muddied with norms, rules, and laws of social systems and how different people applied and responded to these rules. The insights to be gained from this journey are often surprising. The book highlights many counter-intuitive outcomes. It also reveals how certain individuals interpret societys rules and norms despite their design to ensure fair and equitable social systems. Indeed, the manipulation of social laws and standards by those with strong fields of power is self-evident, and it is explored in a unique manner. Understanding how the field of power can be manipulated suggests that no matter how bleak ones current position may be, it is very possible and relatively easy to escape conditions of poverty, oppression, and subjugation, vital issues that citizens in all countries face today.

Download or read book Action Leadership written by Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Action leadership is a creative, innovative, collaborative and self-developed way to lead. It eschews the hierarchical structure usually associated with leadership and is based instead on the democratic values of freedom, equality, inclusion and self-realization. It take responsibility for, not control over, people through networking and orchestrating human energy towards a holistic outcome that benefits the common interest. Action leaders are passionate people who abide by the motto that “Learning does not mean to fill a barrel but rather to ignite a flame” in others. And in this time of rapid economic, political, technological, social and ecological changes, action leadership and action leaders are precisely what’s needed to improve how people and organizations engage constructively to address the myriad complex issues challenging society at all levels. Action Leadership: Towards a Participatory Paradigm explains and illustrates how action leadership can be developed through participatory action learning and action research (PALAR). It addresses real-life issues by people who choose to work collaboratively towards shared goals while developing their learning, insights, knowledge, people skills and personal relationships through involvement in a PALAR project. The book provides a conceptual framework for action leadership and for the integrative, practical theory of PALAR; and examples of applications in higher education, management education for organization development, and community development. Readers are encouraged to adopt, adapt and further develop the evolving concepts of action leadership and PALAR in a participatory paradigm of learning, research and development.

Download or read book The Manager's Guide to Systems Practice written by Frank Stowell and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an ideal resource on the subject of systems practice for busy managers whose time is scarce. It provides a rapid introduction to straightforward, yet powerful ideas that enable users to address real world problems. Systems theory and practice is predominantly a framework for thinking about the World, in which holistic views are maintained. In this respect it contrasts with some familiar techniques of management science, in which problem situations are broken down into their constituent parts with resultant loss of coherence.

Download or read book Systems Practice: How to Act written by Ray Ison and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-10 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how to do systems thinking and translate that thinking into praxis (theory informed practical action). It will be welcomed by those managing or governing in situations of complexity and uncertainty across all domains of professional and personal life. The development of capabilities to think and act systemically is an urgent priority. Humans are now a force of nature, affecting whole-earth dynamics including the earth's climate - we live in an Anthropocene or Capitalocene and are confronted by the emergence of a ‘post-truth’, ‘big data’ world. What we have developed, organisationally and institutionally, seems very fragile. An imperative exists to recover whatever systemic sensibilities we still retain, to foster systems literacy and to invest in systems thinking in practice capability. This will be needed in future at personal, group, community, regional, national and international levels, all at the same time. Systems Practice: How to Act is structured into four parts. Part I introduces the societal need to invest in systems thinking in practice, in contexts of uncertainty and complexity epitomised by the challenges of responding to human-induced climate change. Part II unpacks what is involved in systems practice by means of a juggler isophor; examining situations where systems thinking offers useful understanding and opportunities for change. Part III identifies the main factors that constrain the uptake of systems practice and makes the case for innovation in practice by means of systemic inquiry, systemic action research and systemic intervention. The book concludes with Part IV, which critically examines how systems practice is, or might be, utilised at different levels from the personal to the societal./div