A job title is not a function
The chief executive is System 5, so we have found the organisation's policy function.
The case
Three fictional advice centres make local case decisions. A rota forum resolves shared interpreter conflicts. A finance group negotiates shared resources. A research group examines changing demand. The chief executive chairs some meetings but has delegated several decisions to a partnership board.
Try it before reading on
Choose the organisation being diagnosed. Identify evidence of coordination, resource negotiation, future inquiry, and policy decisions without assigning each person one permanent number.
Use paper or your own notes. Keep the first answer as well as any revision.
Compare your reasoning
The rota forum offers evidence of coordination; the finance and research groups suggest different management functions. Find where identity, authority, and the present/future balance are actually decided. Check the centres' autonomy, environments, and channels. The partnership board may matter, but its name does not settle whether it can legitimately make policy for the chosen system. One person can take part in several functions.
When could the claim be defensible?
A chief executive may perform policy work. The objection is to inferring function from rank without observing decisions, responsibilities, and channels.
Change the conditions
Each centre is an independently governed charity. What must be reconsidered before drawing one common metasystem?
Compare the changed case
The focal boundary, mandate, and legitimate scope of shared decisions need reconsideration. A collaboration need not have a single authority over all participants. Model what they have actually agreed, including unresolved limits.
Follow the specific connection
Viable System Model: diagnose functions and channels
A basic organisational diagnosis. Functions can be distributed or combined in people and groups. The exercise does not establish that every multi-agency network has a single legitimate metasystem.
Systems concepts: make your boundary inspectable
A first rehearsal of boundaries, relationships, perspectives, feedback and emergence. It is not a complete treatment of systems philosophy or complexity science.
Source routes and reading limits
The methodological route below uses the existing practice pack's checked resource descriptions. This release does not claim fresh reading of the external works.
Metaphorum: VSM mapping and editable diagrams
Use the editable diagrams after identifying your focal system, operational units and channels. A completed template is not evidence that the diagnosis is sound.
Existing check: Diagram links and Jon Walker's editing instructions inspected. Templates are not an answer validator.
Jon Walker: Viable Systems Model guide
A useful further route when reachable. This pack provides its own case and answer so access failure does not stop practice.
Existing check: Bibliographic route identified; direct access was not confirmed in this research environment.
OU: drawing systems maps, SAQ 3 and Activities 19-22
Attempt SAQ 3 before opening its answer. Draw your own map for Activities 19-22, then compare the author's choices. Different justified boundaries need not match the example.
Existing check: Tasks, defective maps, answer text and worked revisions inspected. Historic Child Support Agency case, not current policy guidance.
OU: systems maps, updated tutorial
Check containment and boundaries. An OU systems map is not a causal-loop diagram; do not add untyped causal arrows to it.
Existing check: Updated 2021 tutorial page and diagram conventions inspected; playback not independently tested.
OU: systems diagramming
Use the text conventions and printable activities. Use the newer systems-map tutorial below instead of the Flash element.
Existing check: Course content inspected. An old Flash activity is unavailable; do not depend on it.
Take one revision away
Write the claim you can now support, the assumption you changed, and the observation or decision still needed. Do not turn the worked comparison into a compulsory answer where the question admits alternatives.
Choose another claim · Print all task sheets · Download the cases and route record