What results when the people with power "poke their noses into the process, any time, anywhere" is second guessing, distrust, fear, and resistance. Those with power need to allocate decision making authority and then stick by that allocation, even when it comes to restricting their own behavior. That's how you get responsive organizational systems.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Phil Henshaw Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 10:57 PM To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' Subject: Re: [FRIAM] **tomorrow** Lecture: Wed Aug 9 2p, Douglas Samuelson: Attention Allocation in OrganizationalDecision-Making I can't believe anyone talks this way. With all due respect for the offices and life and death issues sometimes involved, you need responsive systems, not micro-managed decision makers. What you want is for the people with the ultimate responsibility to be free to poke their noses into the process, any time, any where, at their leisure. Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin > Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 4:17 PM > To: friam@redfish.com > Subject: [FRIAM] **tomorrow** Lecture: Wed Aug 9 2p,Douglas > Samuelson: Attention Allocation in OrganizationalDecision-Making > > > ** tomorrow** > > TITLE: Attention Allocation in Organizational Decision-Making > > SPEAKER: Douglas A. Samuelson > > AFFILIATION: Homeland Security Institute > > LOCATION: 624 Agua Fria Conference Room > TIME: Wed August 9, ** 2:00p ** (non-standard time) > > ABSTRACT: Consider how to improve organizational decision-making by > streamlining the process of seeking and allocating the attention of > top decision-makers. These decision-makers try to optimize the value > they receive by allocating their attention, taking uncertainty into > account. > In fact, optimizing the benefits of attention results, for the > organization's original problem, in the well-known "satisficing" > behavior described by Herbert Simon. In practice, the behavior is > often similar to the greedy heuristic for the knapsack problem: a few > of the largest topics and many small topics get addressed, while most > middle-sized topics are neglected until they become major problems. > As in the knapsack problem, more clearly identifying sizes (time and > attention required) and values, and considering better ways to > allocate space (attention available), produces better results. By > encouraging persons familiar with particular issues to "bid" for > decision-makers' > attention, giving short, clear estimates of importance and complexity > of the issue, and by then rewarding helpful initiative while > penalizing overbids, senior decision-makers can substantially decrease > the likelihood of overlooking major problems until they become crises. > > Now consider agent-based models of teams of workers, each with a > supervisor, with problems arriving at random by a Poisson process. A > problem requires certain skills and a certain number of units of > effort for each needed skill. > Workers have skills and various numbers of units of work they can > accomplish, per skill area, per time period. In alternative versions > of the model, problems may arrive at a central point where they are > sent to team supervisors, or they may drift through the organization's > space until they encounter a team, or there may be some group > decision-making among team supervisors and an overall manager. The > simplest model is one team and problems arriving directly to that > team's leader; future work can expand in modular fashion. > The version of the model in which problems arrive and drift through > the organization's space randomly until they encounter a team that can > solve them appears to approximate - and explain - the behavior of the > Cohen, March and Olsen Garbage Can Model. Other, more hierarchical > versions are likely to deadlock, overwhelming the managers and > unnecessarily idling many of the workers, in a manner that fit > intuition for certain large, tightly controlled bureaucracies. > Explicitly modeling the attention required by managers and supervisors > to assign problems and monitor progress would add another level of > complexity and realism. > This approach appears to promise a rich variety of interesting > results. > > > Presenter: > > Douglas A. Samuelson is a senior analyst for the Homeland Security > Institute, Arlington, Virginia, and President of WINFORMS, the > Washington, DC chapter of the Institute for Operations Research and > the Management Sciences (INFORMS.) He has also been a Federal policy > analyst, inventor, high-tech entrepreneur and executive, and > university faculty member. > He is perhaps best known for his > popular and long-running "The ORacle" column in OR/MS Today. > He has a D.Sc. in > operations research from George Washington University. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe > at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
