Conflict and risk in systems management as complex adaptive systems issues

摘要

Systems management deals with such issues as program and project management, technical direction of development, quality management, configuration management, and risk management. Risk and associated conflict issues abound in many contemporary systems management situations. Often, these situations emerge from behavior of many independent agents who attempt to achieve both individual objectives and objectives of a larger organizational unit. The resulting systems are "complex" in the sense that behavior patterns can be seen and understood, but interplay of individual elements cannot be reduced to the study of individual elements considered in isolation from one another. The term "complex adaptive system" is often used to describe phenomena that may be characterized by the interactions of numerous individual agents or elements, which self-organize at a higher systems level, and this organization results in evolutionary, emergent, and adaptive properties that are not exhibited by the individual agents themselves. Modeling and simulation are essential in the engineering of large systems of all types, especially those that are subject to evolutionary and path dependent results. Whether we are dealing with human-made systems, human systems, or organizational systems, there is a need to organize and manage for complexity, and associated knowledge and enterprise integration, ultimately for the benefit of all concerned.