Table Of ContentPaul Beynon-Davies
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Understanding Innovation
in Organisation
Business Analysis and Design
Paul Beynon-Davies
Business Analysis and
Design
Understanding Innovation
in Organisation
Paul Beynon-Davies
Cardiff Business School
Cardiff, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-67961-3 ISBN 978-3-030-67962-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67962-0
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For Seren Eira and Gwen Cadi
Prologue
Introduction
A logo is usually some form of graphic—a visualisation used by organisations,
groups or even individuals to aid and promote instant recognition. When we use
logos within this book, they are designed to promote recognition of some of the
fundamentally different ways of thinking you will experience.
As a logo for the current chapter we might use a corruption of the famous illus-
tration by Leonardo da Vinci known as Vitruvian Man (Fig. P.1). This drawing was
an attempt by Leonardo to do a number of things. Overall, it was his attempt to
relate man to nature. To do this, he illustrated the relationship of the human body to
certain fundamental and abstract shapes: namely, the square and the circle. Such
shapes demonstrate the association between certain proportions of the human body
as described by the Roman architect Vitruvius and some fundamental key measure-
ments from the world of aesthetics (the study of beauty in all its forms), particularly
the idea of the golden mean or the golden ratio.
The golden ratio is expressed in mathematics as: two quantities are in the golden
ratio if the ratio of the sum of quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio
of the larger quantity to the smaller one. In other words, a + b is to a as a is to b. This
ratio expressed in decimal notation is the constant 1.6108…
The golden ratio is not only important in the mathematics of geometry, but also
underlies many of the principles of architectural design, such as that used in the
proportions of the Parthenon in Athens. For Leonardo, the golden ratio was evident
in many significant aspects of proportion in nature, such as the structure of the spiral
in a nautilus shell and that found in the dimensions of the human body.
In drawing this figure, Leonardo was inherently proposing, through means of
visualisation, certain inherent linkages between naturally occurring phenomena and
principles of good design. In a similar manner, we attempt to overlay some key
principles upon the nature of what we shall call socio-technical organisation within
this book and demonstrate how these key principles allow us to develop a better
appreciation of the ‘proportion’ of such organisation: both what organisation is but
more importantly what it can achieve.
Some have interpreted Leonardo’s figure as one of the first attempts to break down
barriers between art and science—to demonstrate that science has much to offer
vii
viii Prologue
artistic expression and that artistic expression can be used to make better sense of sci-
ence. The framework (or what we shall later refer to as our design theory) used within
this book is an attempt in a similar vein. Broadly we see no value in the intellectual
gulf between the physical, psychological and social sciences and wherever possible
attempt to demonstrate how socio-technical organisation is necessarily a physical
(technical), psychological and social phenomenon: it is in fact an entangled combina-
tion of these three types of phenomena. We even propose that to engage with socio-
technical organisation, particularly to attempt to innovate with ways of organising, is
necessarily to engage with a third type of science—that of design science. The science
of design must always take on board the goal of aesthetic excellence.
However, anyone knowing the original Leonardo illustration will have noticed
some significant alterations that we have made to Fig. P.1. As well as of course
being much poorer aesthetically than the original we have endowed the figure with
three sets of raised arms as compared to two in the original. Also, at the end of each
arm we have made the hand form a distinct gesture. Each hand gesture is a signifi-
cant pattern in the sense that some actor can accomplish meaning with them through
Fig. P.1 A modified Vitruvian Man
Prologue ix
communicating intent. Such informed intent can also be used to stimulate and con-
trol patterns of performance between humans. As such, these signs exemplify the
formation of resources within larger sign-systems which underlie all communica-
tion and which, in turn, support coordinated activity. This visual device signifies
placing humans—what they do, communicate and represent at the centre of
organisation.
Our purpose in this book is to demonstrate how understanding something of the
nature of signs, patterns and systems as well as how they interact in various ways
enables us to better understand the world of organisation and how it works, particu-
larly the many and varied ways in which humans inter-act with machines and other
artefacts. The combined use of these three tools for thought gives us enormous
power not only for understanding how humans organise themselves as they do but
how to change such ways of organising, hopefully to make such forms of organisa-
tion better (Note).
Note There are lots of short exercises placed throughout the chapters of this
book. We want to emphasise through this that business analysis and design is
all about thinking and doing. The exercises are attempts to get you to think
differently about socio- technical organisation and through such re-orientation
to act differently in terms of such organisation. Some of these exercises can be
done as both group and/or individual activities. A few can even be undertaken
as ‘business’ games or games of organisation. One such game that we have
used many times is described in the introduction.
Conventional Thinking
The current book takes something of an unconventional viewpoint on not only what
business or organisation is but what business should be as an activity that must
directly engage with the complexity of the contemporary global economy, society
and polity. For us creativity must be at the very heart of modern business and cre-
ativity by its very nature is a challenge to conventional ways of thinking and doing.
The psychologist Edward de Bono believes that ‘Creativity involves breaking out of
established patterns in order to look at things in a different way’ (DeBono 1969).
Established patterns are conventions. We normally think and act in conventional
or habitual ways. Conventional thinking is analogous to the tricks of perception
familiar in optical illusions. For instance, how many triangles do you see in Fig. P.2?
The correct answer, of course, should be none. Your eye, and the mind behind it,
sees this image conventionally as two triangles when triangles do not exist in this
representation. In a similar way, frequently the conventional view of business organ-
isation is based upon habitual modes of perception. We tend to think of business
only in terms of familiar patterns of organisation—what we have always done or
what others typically do.
x Prologue
Fig. P.2 An optical
illusion
Fig. P.3 Another optical
illusion
Or consider the further optical illusion in Fig. P.3, which is attributed to the phi-
losopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. What animal do you see represented in this figure?
The answer should be that you see either a duck or a rabbit depending on how you
look. The lesson here is that frequently just changing viewpoint on the same thing
elicits different action. For instance, you are likely to cook duck differently than
rabbit—if you’ve got any sense!
We shall provide three different viewpoints on organisation in this book. Each of
these viewpoints is designed to change your perception of organisation.
They will also change your ideas about appropriate action to take in relation to
the design of organisation.
Prologue xi
So, there are exercises throughout each chapter, which are not the typical type
you get in business texts. They are all exercises in thinking differently. Here is the
first one (Exercise P.1).
Exercise P.1
Thinking differently frequently demands ‘thinking outside the box’—some-
times literally. Consider the matrix of dots below, sometimes called the
Gotschaldt matrix after its inventor.
The challenge is to connect all the dots in the matrix with no more than
four lines—this is the problem set. But you must not take pen off the paper
and any dot should not be bisected by a line more than once. Most people
approach the problem by trying to connect lines within the ‘box’ implied by
the arrangement of dots. But to solve the problem you need to think of lines
starting and ending way outside the ‘box’. One solution is given below. Can
you generate any of the other possible solutions?
Thinking Differently
Creativity is discussed within business but usually is thought as being located in
particular business specialities. Marketing and possibly developing business strat-
egy are typically seen as the most creative parts of business work. Within the
approach explored in this book I want to persuade you otherwise. Within this book
I will persuade you that conducting business analysis and doing business design are
in fact the most creative things you can do within a private, public or voluntary sec-
tor organisation.
This is because business analysis and design involve breaking down convention
or what is better thought of as patterns of order or organising. Business analysis
involves understanding established patterns of order and attempting to break down
such patterns of order. Business design involves attempting to envisage and create
new and hopefully better patterns of order—with the purpose, hopefully, of making
a difference.
