How to Accomplish a Mission

How to Accomplish a Mission - a 'general system’

Contents (hyperlinked documents – click on the underlined colored links to go to the specific section)

 "Interactive Management" and 'OPMS'  A few simple steps  Some illustrative models > "Writing a Letter" > "Enhancing Personal Effectiveness"  Brief list of Missions on which OPMS has been used  A picture of the OPMS

Copyright Notice: This material is copyrighted. Free, unrestricted use is allowed on a non- commercial basis. For any other use, please contact the author, G.S. Chandy, at [email protected] . The author's name and a link to his Website must be incorporated in any reproduction of the material for any use and by any means.

Intelligent Systems for U and Me Bangalore: Terrapin Station (next to Akshara Montessori Art of Learning) Sathanur Village, Bagalur P.O., PIN 562149 Bangalore, India Tel: +91-80-2279 2756; +91-80-2847 8881 Camp: Mumbai c/o Sahi Oretrans Pvt Ltd 30 Western India House, Sir P.M. Road, Fort Mumbai - 400 001, INDIA Tel.: 91-22-40335454 Contact: G.S. Chandy ([email protected] )

©GS Chandy Page 1 10-Jul-02 "Interactive Management" and OPMS

The renowned systems scientist Professor John N. Warfield has designed a powerful process of group problem solving in conditions of situational complexity, called "Interactive Management", which is comprised of tools to enable groups to:  Generate and clarify ideas through focussing by way of 'trigger questions;  'Structure' (or organise) ideas generated in terms of relationships that are appropriate in the system under consideration. This structuring is accomplished through two powerful modeling tools Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), and Field Representation (FR) Method. ISM enables organising ideas by way of appropriate "transitive relationships" in systems; FR enables classifying of ideas into appropriate 'similarity classes' or 'categories' (ignoring any pre-existing frameworks in the mind). Warfield’s Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), illustrated later in this document, along with FR (not explained in this brief note), provide the ‘technology’ required for us to cope, with a relatively high degree of confidence, with all the complexities that systems may involve. Effective means of handling ‘behavioral issues’ contained in systems are built into the ‘idea generation’ processes in Interactive Management. Further, such behavioral issues are also built into the way ISMs and FRs are created – through informed consensus about relationships between factors in the system, arrived at through open debate between the people involved in the system. The OPMS approach adds to Interactive Management a powerful ‘integration’ of all the models built by the people involved in the system, by creating a Field Representation linking up all relevant Dimensions during progress towards the Mission. The OPMS, as illustrated on page 9, is a ‘model of models’ comprising of all the lists and all the models built by the problem solving individual or group during progress towards any Mission. Each ‘element’ in the OPMS (namely, the Dimensions within it) is a pointer to the detailed lists and models relating to the ‘system Mission’. The OPMS enables highly effective planning and implementation work to be carried out in support of any Mission of interest to individuals and to groups.

How to Accomplish a Mission - a 'general' system A Few Simple Steps:

1. Identify the Mission as clearly as possible. Call it "M". Check out whether the Mission is likely to be accomplished satisfactorily in the conventional way or whether there are likely to be any difficulties in accomplishing it. In the following, we describe a powerful step-by-step process that can help an individual or a group to accomplish any Mission that may be difficult or impossible to accomplish in the conventional way. This process also helps in the accomplishment of any Mission with significantly higher effectiveness than is possible than through the 'conventional processes'.

©GS Chandy Page 2 10-Jul-02 On identifying the Mission to an adequate level of agreement, what the individual or the group has to do is just two things: a) Do all the things that may “contribute to” or “help accomplish” the Mission b) Overcome all the barriers /difficulties / threats that may hinder or prevent accomplishment of the Mission. The OPMS approach is a practical means to enable the above two steps to be effectively accomplished. Check out: "OPMS - Outline" for some descriptive background about OPMS, including various Missions on which it has been/is being used. The next steps, below, provide a quick outline of the process involved. Check out "OPMS - Major steps involved in creating" for some more detail on this.

2. Respond to the '1st Fundamental Trigger Question': "What, in your opinion, are the THINGS TO DO to accomplish 'M' ?"

3. In general, one would identify many THINGS TO DO to accomplish the Mission. However, to illustrate the process, let's assume for the moment that there is only one THING TO DO to accomplish the Mission. Then the "contribution model" would be as illustrated below, where the arrow stands for "contributes to" (accomplishment of):

MISSION: 'M'

"should contribute to" THING TO DO

The model above stands for the sentence: "Accomplishment of 'THING TO DO' should contribute to accomplishment of 'M'." (This kind of model, composed of 'intentions' linked with the transitive verb "contributes to", is called an "Intent Structure").

4. If the above model is accurate, and if 'M' has not yet been accomplished satisfactorily, then one may, for the moment, simply forget about 'M' itself and work instead towards accomplishing the THING TO DO that will help accomplish 'M'! The idea, in general, is that one only has to work on accomplishing the activities (or THINGS TO DO) that would help accomplish the Mission. (Users may check out the logic of this argument with any simple goal or objective).

5. Further to clarify the point made at 4 above, suppose now that there are two (and only two) THINGS TO DO, the accomplishment of which would help to accomplish 'M'. Let's call them T1 and T2. Let us suppose that the accomplishment of THING TO DO

©GS Chandy Page 3 10-Jul-02 T2 contributes to the accomplishment of T1. Then the model representing this situation would be as appears below: 'M'

"contributes to"

T 1 Model stands for the sentence: "Accomplishment of T contributes to the accomplishment of T , 2 1 which in turn contributes to the accomplishment T of 'M'. 2 6. Exactly as explained at No 4 above, the moment the above model is ready and found acceptable, one could then forget (for the moment) entirely about 'M' and T1, and just focus on the accomplishment of T2! As one works towards accomplishment of T2, one is actually performing an activity that would in due course contribute to the accomplishment of T1, which would, as it is accomplished, contribute in turn to the accomplishment of 'M'!! Because “contributes to” is a transitive relationship, it turns out that, for larger models one only has to ask a small part of the total number of questions to resolve the entire structure. Transitivity is the following important property: If ‘A’  ‘B’ and ‘B’  ‘C’ then ‘A’ MUST  ‘C’, where ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ represent factors for modeling and ‘’ represents a transitive relationship.

The above logic works perfectly whether one has just 2 THINGS TO DO, or 20, or 200, or as many as 2,000 or 2,000,000 THINGS TO DO! Whatever it might be that one wants to accomplish, all that is actually needed on the ground is to work towards the accomplishment of THINGS TO DO that would contribute to the accomplishment of the desired goal. When we have this process of ISM installed, we then need to focus on just a few of them at our 'current level'. (User should check out this logic with a variety of simple goals or objectives to be convinced that it actually works in real-life situations!) The process shown would enable one to identify a few elements that "contribute to" a whole hierarchy of elements contributing to the Mission. We thus have to think about only the few elements on which we are currently focussing - in the full confidence that what we're now doing will help us accomplish the Mission.

7. We illustrate the above logic on the following pages with a few 'simple' models of well-understood 'small' and 'simple' goals (and some explanation about this process). Some Illustrative Models:

©GS Chandy Page 4 10-Jul-02  "Writing a Letter";  "Enhancing my Personal Effectiveness";  "Getting up from this chair to go sit on another"  "To ensure the organisation XYZ becomes profitable in 1 year's time". (Note – only first two models "Writing a Letter" and “Enhancing my personal effectiveness” are now provided in this document – please let us know if you would like to see models on any of the other issues). If you feel that any of the above 'Missions' are trivial, do please remember that they are certainly NOT trivial for someone who has not yet acquired the skills that “contribute to” that Mission! (In fact, I am certain that each of us once upon a time spent a lot of time and effort learning how to stand up and to walk from Point A to Point B - thus, at that time long ago, this simple thing we have since mastered was certainly not trivial to us. Further, who amongst us would claim we would NOT like "to enhance personal effectiveness" ?). We would all agree that the Mission of "sending up and bringing back a space shuttle safely" is certainly ‘non-trivial’. However, NASA had accomplished it successfully so often that it had become almost trivial to that great engineering organization: it was apparently believed in-house that such a Mission had been entirely mastered. Until suddenly it was discovered, during Columbia’s last tragic flight, that the systems designed had not encompassed all the potential variety inherent in the complex set of problems they were trying to resolve through their systems! The OPMS approach is designed, as a whole, precisely to help us ensure that the variety of the systems we create could come to match the variety of the problem space. 8. Now check through the note titled: "Major Steps in Creating an OPMS", in order to understand the OPMS approach as a comprehensive system to accomplish any Mission of interest! On the next couple of pages, we provide a couple of 'Interpretive Structural Models' on the following Missions:  "Writing a Letter";  "Enhancing my Personal Effectiveness". The above are, obviously, 'personal' Missions, applicable to 'individuals'.

©GS Chandy Page 5 10-Jul-02 Any 'group Mission' will obviously contain a significant further level of complexity beyond that illustrated in the two models herewith - the complexity of differences of perceptions and opinions of people involved in the Mission. We shall demonstrate, while working on the Mission, how consensus may be arrived at in such complex situations. The 'individual' models below are provided as example only, and no claim is made that they are unique - many other models could be made to achieve to accomplish each of the Missions. In respect to the 'Greenleap' Mission, we shall be showing how such models could be created by the members of the group, in consensus, which could be developed as an Action Plan, which in due course Would include considerations like "WHO?", "HOW MUCH?", "WHEN", and so on, as appropriate. The following documentation should be useful at this point:  “OPMS - Outline”  “OPMS - Major steps involved in creating”  "The Power of the Word"  “OPMS – Technology behind (explains the underlying logic)” Next pages - models on:  "Writing a Letter";  "Enhancing my Personal Effectiveness".

©GS Chandy Page 6 10-Jul-02 "Writing a Letter"

Some elements contributing to the Mission "To write a letter" (Provided purely as an example of how the modeling process involved in creating an Action Plan is initiated. Both the ‘elements’ and the models constructed from the elements will depend on the individual or the group constructing them). 1. To decide to whom I should write 2. To write the salutation 3. To begin text of letter 4. To get hold of a pen or pencil 5. To get hold of paper 6. To sit at a table 7. To start composing the letter in my mind 8. To correct errors in what I have written "Writing a Letter - structure of Mission as an ISM" (read bottom-upwards, substituting "should contribute" on encountering an arrow)

M: "To write a letter"

8. To correct errors in what I have written

"may contribute" 2. To write the 3. To begin text of letter salutation

5. To get hold of 4. To get hold of pen paper or pencil

6. To sit at a table

7. To start composing the letter in my mind

1. To decide to whom I should write

©GS Chandy Page 7 10-Jul-02 “Enhancing my personal effectiveness at what I do” This is a model I keep working on from time to time, whenever I feel the inclination to do it (roughly once every month or so). I have tried, in this version, to keep the elements as ‘general’ as possible, so that it would be of interest to others (and also so that I do not give away information about my personal deficiencies!) [As usual, read bottom-upwards in direction of arrows, substituting “should contribute” en encountering an arrow]

Enhancing personal effectiveness

“should contribute”

To take effective action to overcome Weaknesses, Barriers, Difficulties, Threats (10)

To get needed help in all weakness areas (8)

 To get the right advice from others who  To understand my own strengths and know me (5) weaknesses (7) To ensure I do not get into position of  To understand clearly the Barriers, farmer travelling with his son and his Difficulties and Threats I am facing donkey (6) (9)

 To examine my daily activities carefully each To examine critically the structures created day – or at least most days (1) (3)  To develop, regularly, check-lists relating to all important jobs (2)

 To be aware of the enormous importance of this self examination process (4)  To create, regularly, ISMs and FRs describing my Intents, Strengths, Weaknesses, Barriers, etc (11)

©GS Chandy Page 8 10-Jul-02 Brief list of major Missions on which OPMS has been formally used (with greater or lesser success, as indicated)

Here we list just a few of the ‘Missions’ to which OPMS has been (more or less) successfully applied. The ‘degree of success’ for various Missions obviously varies quite a bit. Some brief notes about the degree of success are provided along with each Mission below:  Interactive LogicWare Pvt Ltd (ILW), the company set up to create the OPMS software (see below), conducted over 100 ‘proof-of- concept’ workshops for various small to large organizations. At these workshops, we provided free copies of the prototype OPMS software to all interested participants.

Confidentiality issues prevent us from discussing the Missions taken up at the workshops conducted for organisations – we can state that they ranged from issues such as “To increase turnover to Rs 2000 crores within 3 years, with profitability of ------” to issues like: “To prevent staff attrition in the organization” and “To align staff to the Mission and objectives of the organization”.

In general, workshop participants were most appreciative of the workshops and the power of the OPMS process – and all wanted the market-ready OPMS software when available. Various financial issues prevented us from developing the ‘market version’ of the OPMS – and ILW folded in 2002.

 M: “To propagate OPMS in India and worldwide”: This was the first major Mission taken up by GSC after trials on relatively ‘simple’ Missions as illustrated earlier and Missions like: “To learn how to make effective PowerPoint presentations”. This has since become the major OPMS which continues to this date. Several of the Missions listed below developed as ‘elements’ in an Action Plan to accomplish this very ambitious Mission.

 “To develop the OPMS software” Started development of this as an OPMS Mission after finding it as an element in the the major Mission “M” above. On working with this Mission for a while, it became clear that this would require an ‘instrument’ to help accomplish it – which then led to the next Mission listed below:  “To launch a company to develop the OPMS software” As noted, this was started as a Mission to enable development of the OPMS

©GS Chandy Page 9 10-Jul-02 software – the previously listed Mission. The moment this Mission started, it was found that financing was needed, which led to the next Mission listed below:  “To obtain needed financing for the Company” It took quite a while to get someone interested enough to put in money on a totally unknown process from an totally unknown person. However, through several years of development of this and related Missions, I did manage to get a young entrepreneur interested in putting in some resources into development of the OPMS software. Later we also got very much more financing – but at one crucial stage the financing was withdrawn (long story, which can be told later).. When the Company, Interactive LogicWare (ILW) was successfully launched, the next major Mission that developed were as listed below:  “To enthuse all involved in Interactive LogicWare (ILW) about the power and potential of OPMS” As will be seen below, this Mission was one of the OPMS success stories – with the exception of the ‘financiers’ and ‘senior corporate managers’ of ILW, all were in fact enthused enough to use the OPMS software in their regular work. In particular, I added the following Mission to my Action Plan and took special pains for it: :  “To train a software team for development of OPMS software at ILW” How to train a software team to develop the very complex OPMS software, when we had a bunch of talented but totally inexperienced young programmers to do it? Only one of our programming team had some six months of programming experience. Very shortly after we started, I found that progress made on the design of the software was not adequate. At this point, I requested each members of our software team to put aside their computers and to work on the following Mission:  Software designer: “To become a leading software designer in 1/3/5/ … years” This Mission should be classified as one of the real successes of the OPMS process – as many of the software people on the ILW software team are still holding this Mission as their primary individual goal, and are still working towards it nine years after ILW folded! Many of them have achieved considerable success in their Mission – to the extent that I will not be able to afford to employ them in my next Company to take OPMS forward to its next phase! However, practically all of the software design team are still very much with me in spirit; are helping in many ways to take OPMS forward; most are members of one or more of my YahooGroups, “Towards Democracy”; “ILW Group”; “OPMS Core Team”; and OPMS LastLap” and are still helping in various ways.  Consultant: “To become a leading consultant in my field of specialization within 1/3/5/ … years” This was a Mission presented to the young Consultants who joined the ILW marketing team. Some of them are still continuing work on the

©GS Chandy Page 10 10-Jul-02 Mission – and at least one of them has been spectacularly successful with it.  Facilitators: “To learn how to conduct a truly effective OPMS workshop” Every OPMS Workshop conducted is the product of a whole series of exercises of this nature, designed for the specific interests of the participant groups in the Workshop.

Various other minor Missions on which the OPMS has been successfully applied are indicated below:  “To create effective PowerPoint presentations for my specific needs” (We have a whole range of PowerPoint presentations for our various needs) 

Various Missions on which the OPMS has NOT been successfully applied are indicated below:  “To get the Directors of ILW to use OPMS for the needs of the Company and their own needs”  “To get adequate financing for full development of OPMS”  “To get a major Company interested enough in OPMS to take it up as a powerful tool in their armory of management tools”  “To get government departments interested to apply OPMS to their needs”  “To get the major NGOs to apply OPMS to their needs” 

Camp: Mumbai c/o Sahi Oretrans Pvt Ltd 30 Western India House, Sir P.M. Road, Fort Mumbai - 400 001, INDIA Tel.: 91-22-40335454 Contact: G.S. Chandy ([email protected] ) … next page - a picture of the OPMS

Each of the 'Dimensions' illustrated above ("THINGS TO DO", etc) is a 'pointer' to the 'elements' and the models built from them. Elements in models in different dimensions are linked appropriately to elements in other dimensions. E.g. Elements in models in the 'BARRIERS' Dimension would be linked by way of the relationships "hinders" or "prevents accomplishment of" to the THINGS TO DO. Further, the process enables us to identify specifically what further THINGS TO DO would help us overcome the BARRIERS identified. These elements and models in the OPMS provide a comprehensive 'relational network picture' of the entire 'system' we design to accomplish the identified Mission whatever it may be.

©GS Chandy Page 13 10-Jul-02 Brief Reference list ======A: Interactive Management ======• “Societal Systems: Planning, Policy and Complexity”, by John N. Warfield, Wiley, 1976 • “A Handbook of Interactive Management”, John N. Warfield and Roxana A. Cardenas, Iowa State University Press, 1994 • “A Science of Generic Design: Managing Complexity Through System Design”, John N. Warfield, Iowa State University Press, 1994 • “Essays On Complexity”, John N. Warfield, (Review Copy 1997) • “A Structure-Based Science of Complexity”, John N. Warfield (Review Copy, 1997) • “Introduction to Systems Science", John N. Warfield, World Publishers, 2006 • Warfield's website: http://www.jnwarfield.com • The "John N. Warfield Collection" (of books, papers and presentations) held at the library of George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA - check out: http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaead/published/gmu/vifgm00008.tp

B: One Page Management System (based on Warfield's work) ======OPMS Prototype Software, 2002 – freely available – write to: gs (underscore) chandy(at)yahoo(dot)com OPMS Workbook, G.S. Chandy, Private Publication, 1993, again 2000 OPMS Handouts, ILW, latest – July 2001 - Various other documents 2001-2008, including a sizable number of PowerPoint presentations, Word Documents, etc

C: General Systems Theory (Background study)

There is an enormous literature relating to GST, the mere listing of which would run into literally hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of pages. Those of you who wish to become Facilitators may like to write to us for the names of some reference and background books on GST. ***