Kevin Doyle

Uniting Systems Theory with Practice

Since the middle of this century much important work has been done by members of the systems community to further understanding of complex matters in areas such as computation theory, self reproducing automata, cybernetics, information theory and the softer areas of social or purposeful systems. However, the objective of re-integrating disjoint scientific specialities under a general systems theory has not been met. During the last twenty years, fragmentation rather than integration has occurred with significant differences developing between the conceptualisation of ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ systems, ‘hard’ and’ soft’ systems, ‘concrete’ and ‘abstract’ systems, and ‘physical’ and’ social’ systems. During this period the ‘meta-discipline’ of Systems Science has developed to the point where, (to paraphrase Einstein) “As far as the laws of General Systems Theory refer to reality they are not certain and as far as they are certain they do not refer to reality”, (Capra, 1992).

Research and Reality: Co-Exist or Co-Inhabit?

Our ongoing empirical research compares leading technological organisations in four sectors of the UK economy; these are Banking (Citicorp), Construction (Kvaerner — Trafalgar House), Health (Frenchay NHS Healthcare Trust) and Transportation (LEX). This comparison identifies their stages of IS development, their relative timescales and costs (measured in terms of IS investment per employee per annum) and their information quality (indicated by the average number of defects suffered by each employee each day). A goal is to improve information quality control by back-tracking the causes of defects and evaluating their effects by forward-tracking, where possible.

Putting Systems Theory into Practice and Vice Versa

Excerpt only. For full access, check out the book through your local library, request it on interlibrary loan, or order it through a book dealer.

They Shoot Werewolves, Don’t They?

This paper discusses the way that systems development methods have emerged in an attempt to solve the problem of the “software crisis”, and questions whether information systems developers really understand the nature of the problem that they are trying to solve.