| Excerpt from: Value Networks
|  | | December 19, 2009 | | PwC technology forecast includes ValueNetworks.com and other new technologies |  ValueNetworks.com is one of several companies metnioned in the the latest edition of Technology Forecast: Unlocking hidden transformation value, 2010, Issue 1, the PwC annual enterprise architecture issue that looks at modeling and simulation from an architectural and transformation standpoint.
In the lead article, "Embracing Unpredictability," authors Bo Parker, Chris Wasden, and Alan Morrison describe how next generation enterprise modeling tools are helping people understand organizations as complex adaptive systems.
Their premise is, "Most modeling efforts don’t acknowledge that enterprises are complex adaptive systems, systems that evolve in response to complex human interactions. Lacking this perspective, these efforts fail to make room for value-creating behavior that’s emergent, or unpredictable. Accurately anticipating and controlling the outcome of transformations requires that organizations model both their deterministic and emergent properties."
The report has this to say about value networks:
New social network analysis tools make structural relationships more transparent and help management understand hierarchies and social networks. These tools also help management strike the right balance between hierarchy and flatness to optimize for value creation rather than leave it to chance. "The real value of analyzing the social network begins when you can validate whether or not essential human interactions are even happening at all," says Verna Allee, CEO of ValueNetworks.com, which offers products and services for analyzing and optimizing value networks.
Allee’s colleague, CTO Oliver Schwabe, developed a tool to analyze data from human resources (HR) modules in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, project management systems, and the like to help organizations see where social interactions occur and where the work gets done. After analyzing the output, the ValueNetworks.com team delivers a role-oriented process map to help its clients diagnose and address social network snags and gaps.
Modeling these emergent social networks within enterprises as well as the social networks that extend to a company’s business partners and ecosystem also can be fruitful. As research by Allee, Rouse, and others has shown, the flow of information, knowledge, and value through an organization does not resemble a linear series of process maps and is not likely to be defined by organizational hierarchies. These tools help companies to understand exactly how the flows work, and to invoke policies and technologies that support those flows.
Lessons from evolution
ValueNetworks.com is part of a larger movement that advances a more holistic view of how organizations create value through fundamental innovation. Rather than solely using a process-oriented approach, one that’s well suited for optimizing workflows, for instance, enterprises can add a social network layer to pinpoint valuable interactions.
A more comprehensive approach allows companies to model their organizations as evolutionary or complex adaptive systems, and study the way individual actors or “agents” within the system interact. Studying this interaction then helps companies to anticipate various outcomes, including the creation of surprising opportunities. These methods of modeling CAS resemble those used to study biology, geology, and other scientific disciplines.
Read the full report here: | Topic Tags: Alan Morrison, Bo Parker, business modeling, business simulation, Chris Wasden, complex adaptive systems, PwC, technology forecasting, ValueNetworks.com | |
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