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The DEMOSOPHIA Design Environment
Example Demosophia Type Facility in Action
DEMOSOPHIA-TYPE SITUATION ROOM
John N. Warfield
In the course of the research mentioned, two outcomes are especially significant:
To initiate this activity in 1995 at George Mason University, it is proposed that GMU make available the space to house the initial, dedicated, infrastructure for housing group interactions, identified in this proposal as a DEMOSOPHIA-type Situation Room with appropriate service areas, which can be applied to the "threefold purpose" identified herein.(2)
CONSTRUCTION AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
Virtually all of the primary flaws in today's universities can be traced to the impact of complexity on the mission of the university, coupled with the lack of formal university recognition of what has just been said and its implications for higher education. False dichotomies have been created which occupy much time and endless discussion, e.g., the disciplines should give way to broader studies that are highly relevant to society, and especially to economic development. Two main task areas face the university of tomorrow:
Specifically, it is proposed that GMU provide the space to create a situation room of the DEMOSOPHIA type, with appropriate service areas, for the following "threefold purposes":
Aims of Research on Complexity. In the late 1960s, a research and development effort was begun at a time of extreme turmoil in American life, with the threefold aim of (a) studying complexity scientifically, (b) creating, testing, and upgrading a management support system: an integrated behavioral/technical process and a supporting process environment that could become a basis for working effectively with complexity in organizations and (c) ultimately moving this technology into the mainstream of American life in both government and corporate settings. A continuous program of research, development, and testing was carried out during the period 1968-1995, founded in the threefold aim. Three significant results of this program are: (a) the successful development of the sought management support system (a process), called Interactive Management, heavily documented in books, papers, application reports and videotapes of Interactive Management Workshops; (b) the development and publication of a science of generic design, which provides the conceptual foundation for the process; and (c) the discovery of 17 Laws of Complexity, which underpin both the science and the management process. Institutional Participation in Empirical Testing. During the 27 years of development, the technology has been progressively tested many times in many places, always in realistic settings on problems of urgency to the organization and individuals involved. The test or professional working sites have included, in approximate temporal order: Tata Consultancy Services, Hyderabad, India; the University of Queensland in Australia; several Japanese corporations; the University of São Paulo in Brazil; the U. S. Forest Service, Washington, D. C.; the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla, California; City University in London, United Kingdom; the National Marine Fisheries Service, Washington, D. C., the Defense Systems Management College, Fort Belvoir, Virginia; the University of Hokkaido in Japan; Americans for Indian Opportunity in the United States; the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), Mexico; CWA, Ltd., in Berwyn, Pennsylvania; the National Railroad Passenger Corporation ("AMTRAK"); Northern Telecom and the Bell Northern Research Company of Canada; the Ford Motor Company of Dearborn, Michigan; the University of Humberside, Hull, United Kingdom; the Rapid Response Manufacturing Consortium operating under a project managed from the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, Ann Arbor, Michigan; the Center for Interactive Management, New Delhi, India, and the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Maryland.. The Interactive Management technology has been successfully transferred to those organizations highlighted in the preceding list. Outcomes of Application. Among the outcomes of its application are: (a) the redesign of the defense acquisition system of the United States, followed by major changes to that system in the past few years; (b) development within Ford Motor Company of new prototypical front-end approaches to new system design; (c) significant cultural change highly contributory to NAFTA occurring in Mexico, in AMTRAK, and in the Ford Motor Company; and (d) dramatic increases in system design productivity in many of the organizations involved. Lessons Learned. Lessons have been learned during this development. Many of them reflect the importance of careful consideration of scale in determining how to manage complexity. Other lessons reflect the impact of role confusion in large organizations, which creates major gaps in what ought to be integrated management practices. Still others relate to the interpretation and value of IM products. A major conclusion stemming from this work is that, in the long run, higher education must become sensitive to the importance of scale, and modify its infrastructure to accommodate to the study of complexity. To initiate this activity in 1995, at George Mason University, it is proposed that GMU make available the space to house the appropriate infrastructure, identified in this proposal as a DEMOSOPHIA-type Situation Room with appropriate service areas, which can be applied to the "threefold purpose" identified herein.
Criterion 1. Appropriate Scholarly Documentation. Is there appropriate detailed documentation to support the claim that an adequate scholarly basis exists for teaching and research, of the type mentioned, to be carried out in the proposed facility? Response. Yes. The documentation is provided in Appendix 1. Consult Page 8 to see the contents of Appendix 1, which illustrates the following: The work is closely coupled to philosophical and scientific thinking involving deceased "colleagues of inheritance", whose work has come down through the ages, extending backward as far as Aristotle, and as recent as Michel Foucault. Moreover, a number of contributors have taken note of the literature identified in Appendix 1, and have themselves made contemporary contributions, the nature of which is spelled out in Appendix 1. Among them is Professor Benjamin Broome of GMU, presently applying Interactive Management on the island of Cyprus, as a Fulbright Fellow, to help reconcile differences among the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and who has previously taught the relevant material at GMU in a very popular course, requiring the use of the kind of facility envisioned, and who wishes to continue to do so upon his imminent return from Cyprus. Criterion 2. Potential for Serving GMU Constituencies. Is there any evidence to suggest that such a facility, if constructed, could provide services to various university constituencies? Response. Yes. The documentation is included in Appendix 1 and the references identified there. In particular, two books identified there (1994 books published by Iowa State University Press) show how and where the material has already been applied in higher education to various constituencies, both domestic and international. Criterion 3. Potential for Derivative Income. Is there any evidence to suggest that outside sponsors might be found to carry out work in this facility, thereby supporting ongoing expenses? Response. Yes. As inspection of GMU's own accounting records may reveal, approximately $1.2 million in contract or grant research has been brought in to GMU within the past decade, specifically for the purpose of doing research or providing support for research that requires a facility of this type. During the five-year period from 1984 to 1989, when an experimental version of such a facility was located in Thompson Hall, approximately $250,000 was brought in from about 12 sponsors, just to do work in that room. More recently, several organizations have constructed such a room to carry out related work in their own location, in part because of the unavailability of such a facility at GMU. Criterion 4. Credibility of Claims. What evidence is there to suggest that what is said about complexity, as it is defined in the various references identified in this proposal, and said to be a potential major concern of higher education, is valid? Response. While much evidence exists, let's consider the use of the Situational Complexity Index to identify complex situations, and what it reveals in the application of Interactive Management to the largest-scale issue so far tackled, namely, the redesign of the United States Defense Acquisition System, the results being incorporated in Public Law 103-355, dated October 13, 1994, titled: "Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994". The Situational Complexity Index (SCI) can be interpreted through its three constituent subindexes. The Miller Index. Let N be the number of distinct problems involved in the situation being explored. Let the quantity N/7 be identified as the Miller Index. (This nomenclature is chosen to honor George Miller, who first published an analysis of the quantitative capability of the human mind in his often-cited paper concerning the "magical number".) If N = 7, the Miller Index is equal to 1, and the number 1 can then be taken as a reference point. For values of N less than 1, the human being is operating in a zone of capability, reflected in the Law of Triadic Compatibility. If N is greater than 7, the human being leaves that zone and enters a region of inability to work simultaneously with a set of elements. The Spreadthink Index. Let V be the number of problems in the set of N thought to be of highest importance by an expert group. Let the quantity V/5 be identifed as the Spreadthink Index. If V = 5, the Spreadthink Index takes the value 1, which corresponds to total consensus. For values exceeding 1, the Spreadthink Index measures the variability of belief that is so characteristic of groups that grapple collectively with complexity. The DeMorgan Index. Let K be the number of distinct aggravation relationships among pairs of the V problems. Let the quantity K/10 be identified as the DeMorgan Index. (This name is chosen to honor Augustus DeMorgan, the inventor of symbolic notation for relations.) The number 10 corresponds to that degree of relationality represented by a linear structure involving 10 relationships among five elements, thereby correlating with the situation where a group agrees on the 5 most important aspects of a situation. When the DeMorgan Index is 1, it means that the relations among components of a complex situation are modest in number, and very likely manageable. For values exceeding 1, and departures from linearity of structure, the DeMorgan Index is a measure of the extent of relationships among identified components of the complex situation. Viewed as just described, the Situational Complexity Index is the product of the Miller Index, the Spreadthink Index, and the DeMorgan Index. Necessary and sufficient conditions that a situation be complex are that the situation contains seven components: (a) a human presence, (b) a generic purpose associated with the human presence, (c) exercise of system inquiry by the human presence, (d) human purpose-related infrastructure to make possible the system inquiry, (e) system-related environment, (f) sensing apertures for space-time sampling of the situation by the human presence, and (g) cognition on the part of the human presence; and that the Situation Complexity Index (SCI) shall have a value of at least 100, where SCI = (N/7)(V/5)(K/10) = (1/350) NVK. In several applications of Interactive Management at Ford Motor Company, all instances showed values of SCI well over 100, with the highest value found at Ford so far being 7,000. In contrast, the work done by Henry Alberts of the Defense Systems Management College in redesigning the U. S. defense acquisition system involves the following quantitative descriptors:
PHASE 1. RESULTS
Miller Index.......97
Situation Complexity Index: 1.9 Million
PHASE 2 RESULTS:
Miller Index.......3
Situational Complexity Index: reduced to 216
PHASE 3 RESULTS:
Miller Index.......1
Situational Complexity
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