Study and Instrumentation of Decision Taking in Dynamic Social Networks

Research Theme: Change Management

Many design and planning programmes make assumptions of linearity within the design, planning, decision-making [Simon] and decision-taking [van de Kraats] processes. These assumptions can often mean that recommended decisions made during the design and planning processes are not those actually taken. This leads into considerations of change decisions, that might allow designs and plans to more adaptively predict change direction [Clarkson] so that the decision wanted and the decision taken converge.

Motivation

The reasons for non-convergence are not always known but the results often cause confusion and demoralisation to the individual design teams and the decision-takers themselves – leading to delay, redesign and re-working whilst resolution is sought. This would appear to suggest a lack of situational awareness [Endsley] between designers, planners and decision-takers. In other words, they are acting exclusively and not inclusively of each others requirements – and interacting in a linear way that is complicated, but not complex. This also gives rise to considerations of the need for agility [Alberts] in and between the decision taking and design processes.

Method

Working with the NECTISE project and also within the NEC programme and the UK Defence Academy and MoD, it is proposed to establish means for dynamically and non-obtrusively observing design and planning activities within the decision-taking processes. This will be examined at alternative scales and levels, using different design and planning teams, in order to determine principles for – as opposed to optimising – the modelling of dynamic technical and social networks. From this, it is intended to develop means for instrumenting these observations in order to adaptively support the design, planning and decision-taking processes.

Details

  • How do adaptation and adaption contribute to change decisions in the decision-taking processes?
  • Is it possible to consider Complex Adaptive and Agile Systems and, or, Complex Adaptive and Agile Design / Planning Processes?
  • What are the social interactions and social networks that exist within and between different communities and decision-takers?
  • What differences within and between communities in terms of situational awareness influence performance and results?
  • Can organisations interactively achieve inclusivity of both design and decision-taking?
  • Is it possible to model the dynamics of complex adaptive and agile socio-technical systems and their decision taking and design and planning processes?
  • Is it possible through instrumentation to dynamically and non-obtrusively measure the different connected entities in a system or network of networks so as to empirically provide information and data as to what has occurred in a particular observed combination?

These considerations inevitably raise the issue of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) [Holland], in which ‘the whole’ is more than the sum of the parts; so focusing research into the global emergent behavior of the system.

Williams [1966], argues that change and so ‘adaptation is an anatomical, physiological, or behavioral trait that contributes to an individual's ability to change and so survive and reproduce ("fitness") in competition with conspecifics [members of the same species] in the environment in which it evolved’. Rapoport [1974] takes this further by arguing that adaptation is ‘the processes by which organisms or groups of organisms maintain homeostasis in and among themselves in the face of both [explicit] short-term [tactical and operational, minute and second hand] environmental fluctuations and long-term [emergent, hour-hand, strategic] changes in the composition and structure of their environments’. It is these notions of adaption and adaptation that appear key to our understanding of Complex Adaptive and Agile Systems and so the decision-taking processes embedded within them.

Acknowledgements

  • UK MoD.
  • The Royal Navy.
  • NECTISE.
  • The UK Defence Academy.
  • Dr D. Alberts, Director of Research, DoD, Command and Control Research Programme.
  • Professor J. Moffat, Senior Fellow, Dstl.

Selected Publications

  • Alberts, D. S. and R. E. Hayes (2007). Planning Complex Endeavours. DoD Command and Control Research Program, CCRP publications: 2
  • Clarkson, P. J., C. Simons, et al. (2004). Predicting change propagation in complex design. Journal of Mechanical Design 126(5): 765-797.
  • Endsley, M.R. (1988) Design and Evaluation for Situation Awareness Enhancement. Santa Monica, CA: Human factors Society Proceedings of the Human Factors, 32nd Annual Meeting, pp. 97-101.
  • Rapoport, A. and L.B. Slobodkin. (1974). An optimal strategy of evolution. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 49(3), Sep, pp. 181-200.
  • Simon, H. (1983). Reason in Human Affairs. Stanford University Press.
  • van de Kraats, A.H. and Lambert F.G. Thurlings. (1997). A New Approach towards strategic decision-taking in a multi-product innovative organisation. Part II: the Culture. International Journal of Technology Management, 13(2), pp. 102-109.
  • Williams G. C. (1966). Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton University Press.