Structural Cybernetics and IT Organisational Redesign

Control Loop

In the 1990s N. Dean Meyer extended the works’ of W. Ross Ashby (requisite variety) and Stafford Beer and developed an area of management cybernetics called structural cybernetics. This field of research is concerned with the issues of organisational design and its impact on performance. In his book Structural Cybernetics: An Overview Meyer argues that organisational dysfunction – political infighting, bureaucratic culture, fragmentation, weak strategic alignment and so on– is often attributed to defective organisational structures.

Cybernetics or systems science is the multidisciplinary study of complex dynamic systems and connects the fields of engineering, biology, neurology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and organisational theory. Whether you realise it or not, Cybernetics affects everyday life in some way. For example, the way a thermostat controls heating in your home, the functions of a personal computer, the project control cycle or the Deming –– plan, do, check, act –– cycle. That is, the idea of control loops and feedback. Correspondingly, the sub-discipline of management cybernetics is concerned with the application of cybernetic laws to organisations and to the interactions within them and between them. In other words, every employee affects business outcomes in some way.

Structural cybernetics provides a model of organisational design that creates high-performance teams and empowers employees. By building flexible and entrepreneurial organisational structures –that radically change the way an organisation works people are enabled and can do the job they were employed to do without risk of confusion, territorial dispute, or unnecessary management intervention.

Structural Cybernetics and the IT Organisation

Meyer modelled much of his work around the IT organisation and claims that structure is often the root cause of common IS failings. For example, a lack of customer focus, poor team work, or a disjointed technical architecture. This is not that surprising. Many organisations formed their information management departments during the 1960s and 1970s when computing or data processing, office automation and communication technologies were disparate and in their infancy. With IT, which has rapidly increasing variety, these areas now converge and encompass the whole business. Yet many IT organisations haven’t changed a great deal in years with most structures evolving over time to accommodate new technologies, projects, and services. We’ve seen centralisation, decentralisation and re-centralisation, and the addition of new functions to support new technologies. Whilst tinkering at the edges has some benefits these are usually short lived and do not address the underlying problem with many organisational structures.

Structural issues often point misleadingly to people, process, and culture but are more likely structural. Typical problems caused by structural problems include:

• Confused accountabilities and territorial disputes – Unclear boundaries and accountabilities lead to confusion and indecision. Time is spent unnecessarily to resolve internal disputes. Managers spend time dealing with operational problems rather than leading their teams on transformational work.
• De-motivated staff – When staff is not in control of their work they feel demotivated. If organisations place credence on organisational hierarcy instead of professional competence the structure dis-empowers people, stiffles creativity, and creates generalists. Expertise is lost to the organisations because the only way to progress careers is to switch jobs or move into management roles.
• A lack of teamwork – A lack of cooperation and tendency to pass the buck (not taking responsibility because it is someone else’s problem.) Teamwork often suffers when boundaries overlap or are unclear. For example, where accountability is undefined and responsibility rests with more than one team or function.
• Fragmentation or disintegration – In dysfunctional organisations people tend to focus on their work without regard to the broader issues of standards or architectural integration. Moreover, projects tend to dictate technological direction resulting in systems that are disjointed and difficult to support.
• Mistrust – A reluctance to share information because the IT organisation serves its own interests rather than those of the business. This results in mistrust and a diminished position within the organisation.
• A slow pace of innovation, outdated skills and technology – Managers should lead the organisation toward continual improvement not get embroiled in day-to-day work. A successful organisation needs to innovate and develop. This is particularly true of the IT organisation where there is an increasingly broad range of specialist disciplines involving the management of information. Unfortunately, some organisations discourage continuing professional development resulting in a loss of expertise and the creation of generalists. IT should be an enabler for change but can be a source of resistance to change. What’s more, world class organisations need experts!

In a nutshell, if your organisational structure is impeding the efforts of your staff the IT organisation needs nothing less than total re-organisation.

Spotting Organisational Dysfunction

If organisational structure is a primary cause of IT service performance issues – a lack of customer focus and strategic alignment, poor teamwork, deficient methods, a shortage of innovation, and disjointed information architecture – it is likely that the IT organisation suffers structural dysfunction because:

• Any particular function is likely to be performed on a part-time basis (or not at all) by people whose primary focus is on another function altogether. This leads to a lack of professionalism and slow progress. Consequently, critical activities are not performed or performed infrequently. For example, service and contract management may be included in the job description of a service delivery manager who finds little time to deal with it because of day-to-day operational issues.
• A group is expected to perform more than one function resulting in too much ground to cover or conflicts of interests. For instance, delivering projects whilst supporting day-to-day operations.
• Like functions are located across many offices resulting in a loss of peer integration, architectural fragmentation, and overlapping territories. When organisations centralise IT functions they often retain the original team structures and create duplicate functions that support either specific technologies or parts of the whole organisation. This can lead to fragmentation, poor teamwork (territorial disputes) and information silos.

According to Meyer the IT organisation can overcome these problems by creating four major IT groups (Meyer also describes a fifth – audit – but I have omitted this.) These are:

1. Technologists – These units build innovative technical solutions. There are two types of technologists: application specialists who are responsible for data-specific systems, and base technologists who are specialists in component technologies and off-the-shelf tools.
2. Service bureaus – These units are dedicated to providing reliable and efficient operational services. There are two types of service bureaus: machine-based service bureaus own and operate shared-use systems and sell services that are primarily produced by machines, and people-based service bureaus provide services produced by people rather than machines.
3. Architects – The architect unit is responsible for assembling key decision-makers and defining the information architecture for the business. This small unit will build a consensus for standards, guidelines, and statements of direction that constrain the design of systems for the purpose of eventual integration.
4. Consultants – The consultants are responsible for understanding the business and applying methods of business analysis. There are strategic consultants who serve key opinion-leaders in the business, and business consultants who are available to anyone in the business.

The New IT Organisation

I prefer to adapt Meyer’s model, which describes seven functional building blocks of structure, around the business partnering role model and the core capabilities of an IT service. There are six building blocks in my variant model:

1. Core infrastructure services own and operate the information systems foruse by others. They include the computer (data) centre, network operations, telecommunications, storage, and printing services. This function is delivered by shared services.
2. Support services – provide routine services that are performed by people that includes the service desk, installation and repair, procurement (purchasing) and administration plus other services that help the other functions deliver IT products to the business. This function is also delivered by shared services.
3. Applications specialists – design, procure, build and maintain data-specific software for transactional processing. They include most systems analysts and programmers. This function is delivered by centres of excellence.
4. Base technology specialists – design, procure, build and maintain all technologies other than transaction-processing applications including systems software and hardware, telecommunications, software and information engineering, end-user computing, and information disciplines. This function is delivered by the centres of excellence.
5. Architects – facilitate agreement on standards and guidelines that allow technologists to act independently in response to business needs and yet still progress toward architectural integration. This function is also delivered by centres of excellence.
6. Strategic business partners – are the primary relationship to the business. The business partner works with business leaders to transform business strategies into information systems requirements. This function is delivered through business partnering.

Figure 1. Business Partnering for IT Services

The benefits of business partnering and a balanced organisational structure include:

Specialism – each unit will be specialists in its field of expertise resulting in increased productivity, quality, and innovation. Units are empowered to act independently whilst operating within clearly defined standards and guidelines.

Professionalism – peer interaction is increased, speeding up the pace of learning and innovation, and improving productivity. Presently, we see a replication of effort with expertise developed in one area not shared across the service.

Architectural integrity – since each unit is collocated and there is a well defined architecture function, teams cannot develop their own culture, practice and standards. Once again, quality, productivity and innovation improve because experts work together to agree upon standards, practice and design principles.

Improved relationships – by aligning IT and business strategy IT is positioned as an enabler and service provider. Effective business partnering will help IT engage in the business planning process from the outset and forge strong working relationships. However, business partnering is less about structure and more about skills: strategic thinking, consulting, relationship management, networking, business and financial understanding, change management, influencing, political awareness etc.

Strategic direction – determined by strong leadership and strategic business partners. IT investments and resources are steered by business strategy and business priorities.

Effective use of resources – the teams are managed as a single unit and can better accommodate and control resource demands. Whilst the technology specialist may still need to fix problems affecting service delivery they are not responsible for service support.

Application lifecycle management – the structure differentiates between governance, implementation and in-service support to ensure teams focus on their core capabilities. Moreover, role and responsibility is well defined and conflict of interest eliminated.

Core capabilities – the IT organisation is designed to strengthen the core capabilities; critical functions are performed by a single team or unit. Shared services are dedicated to providing a reliable and efficient operational service. The centres of excellence define architectural standards and build innovative technical solutions. Strategic business partnering provides a link with the business and determines IT strategy. See figure 1 (adapted from David Feeny and Leslie P. Willcocks‘ core IS capabilities.)

Image: Renjith Krishnan/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net.