Magnus Ramage

Organisational scenarios and legacy systems

A legacy system is made up of technical components and social factors (such as software, people, skills, business processes) which no longer meet the needs of the business environment. The study of legacy systems has tended to be biased towards a software engineering perspective and to concentrate on technical properties. This paper suggests that the evaluation of potential change options for legacy systems can only be carried out as part of an holistic organisational analysis. That is, the evaluation of legacy systems must take place within a framework that combines business and technical considerations. In particular, we believe that the business strategy must lead this process. Accordingly, we have designed an inter-disciplinary approach which brings together an organisational scenarios tool (based on concepts from the field of organisational development) and a technical scenarios tool (based on concepts from the field of software engineering). These tools are applied in an iterative way, so that technical options are tested out against the business needs. It is, thus, a dynamic tool which seeks to mimic the nature of organisational change, as far as is practicable. The research project described here is entitled software as a business asset (SABA) and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under the systems engineering for business process change (SEBPC) programme. This paper describes the research approach and its iterative stages, and illustrates its use within a large engineering firm (Engco). Its application produced useful insights for the organisation, as well as pointers for further modification of our research approach.

The usage of best practices and procedures in the database community

Database management has an important role to play in the management of data assets which are at the heart of every organization. In a fast moving technological era, where data is rapidly expanding, understanding the current best practices and procedures is important for continuous improvement. This paper investigates how databases are actually administered and identifies what practices and procedures are utilized throughout the database lifecycle. The paper highlights the demographics of people who manage database systems and the diverse requirements of database systems given the wide range of software and hardware available. The results of this paper show the breadth of issues relevant to database management. The paper concludes by showing where existing practice and procedures are not optimal, and by highlighting the complexities in the field. There are a variety of adoption levels for best practices and procedures.Training and keeping up to date with technology was important but sometimes lacking.Best practices are continually changing and many organizations have their own custom best practices.There are gaps in practices and procedures for database management.

NORBERT AND GREGORY: Two strands of cybernetics

In this article, I shall examine the way in which information was central to the development of cybernetics. I particularly contrast the different uses of the concept by two key participants in that development – Norbert Wiener, who argued that information was a quasi-physical concept related to the degree of organization in a system; and Gregory Bateson, who considered information to be a process of human meaning formation. I suggest that these two authors exemplify a hard and a soft strand of cybernetics, present from the start of the field. I trace through these two different interpretations of information as they developed in the cybernetics movement, and on the way they have fed into more recent understandings of information within cybernetics and related fields, especially in family therapy and sociology. I also relate these ideas to the cyborg theory of Donna Haraway and others.

Evaluating Groupware Support for Software Engineering Students

Software engineering tasks, during both development and maintenance, typically involve teamwork using computers. Team members rarely work on isolated computers. An underlying assumption of our research is that software engineering teams will work more effectively if adequately supported by network-based groupware technology. Experience of working with groupware and evaluating groupware systems will also give software engineering students a direct appreciation of the requirements of engineering such systems.

Expanding the Concept of ‘Model’: The Transfer from Technological to Human Domains within Systems Thinking

‘Systems thinking’ is a portmanteau term for a body of theories and techniques that unite around a focus on whole systems and relationships between entities, rather than breaking systems down into their individual components and considering those components in isolation. Various forms of modelling are central within systems thinking, with many of the modelling techniques being developed from work originally carried out in engineering and technology settings, but applied to human-centred application domains, in particular organisations and the environment, but also many others. In this chapter we will discuss four quite different systems modelling approaches that have adapted modelling techniques from engineering to studies of humanity: system dynamics (the work of Jay Forrester and others, applied to organisational, economic and ecological systems); the viable systems model of Stafford Beer (applied to organisational systems); the work of Howard Odum on ecological systems; and the systems diagramming approach of the former Faculty of Technology at the Open University.

Information systems: a cyborg discipline?

This paper argues for a model of information systems in terms of cyborgs: a boundary-crossing mixture of the technical and the social. The argument for this model is substantiated from the personal experience of the author, presented as examples of being a cyborg researcher within a disciplinary context. Lessons for information systems are drawn.

Living in a time of change

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a vision for the future development of Kybernetes under a new editorship.Design/methodology/approach – The new Editors are introduced, the strengths and history of the journal reviewed, and plans for its future development described.Findings – The future of Kybernetes will build on its long and distinguished heritage, noting especially the strengths of interdisplinarity, internationality, and strong links with major cybernetic societies across the world. While maintaining these strengths, the new Editors will seek to develop further the conversations between diverse fields contributing to the journal and to bring a new emphasis to the interdisciplinary study of information, to studies of the social implications of cybernetics and related fields, and to profiles of thinkers in cybernetics, systems and management science.Originality/value – This is only the second time that there has been a change of editor in the more than 40 years that Kybernetes has been ...

Sixth Conference on The Difference that Makes a Difference (DTMD), on Information, Narrative and Rhetoric: Exploring Meaning in a Digitalised Society

Many academic disciplines and applied fields use the concepts and language of information, yet different areas talk in different ways and make different implicit or explicit assumptions about the nature of information. The Difference That Makes a Difference (DTMD) series of conferences and workshops aims, therefore, at interdisciplinary sharing of insights on information by bringing academics and practitioners into conversation and dialogue.

Religion, Information and Ritual: Understanding Difference in a Sacred Context

Religion is a fundamental part of the lived experience of the majority of humanity. This paper reports on the conceptualization of religion through an understanding of its relationship with information. The focus is on practice and ritual rather than belief. Information is here understood in terms of Bateson’s definition of “the difference that makes a difference”. The paper explores information in a ritual context in a variety of settings, as well as touching on work done regarding other uses of information by religious communities, such as church websites and learning environments.

Meaning, Selection & Narrative: The Information We See and the Information We Don’t

In a world that is highly saturated by data, sifting it and making sense of it has become increasingly important. A key mechanism for this process is narrative – the stories we tell about the world, whether in terms of politics or technology, which enable us to select information that we see as important. Yet narratives are highly contested and multiple. This article discusses the dynamics of narrative creation, via a process of selective information, arguing that this leads some people to see particular data as crucial information, while leading others to ignore it completely.