Topic
Organisation
Organisations reproduce themselves through decisions and the expectations that guide subsequent decisions.
Organisations stabilise expectations about how decisions can be made. These structures both reduce the burden of decision-making and impose constraints. They become observable where concrete decisions repeatedly create the same problems for subsequent decisions.
Distinctions used
Decision/Alternative
Which alternative possibility is simultaneously excluded by a decision?
Observation
- Phenomenon
- Recurring problems persist even when individual decisions appear plausible.
- Insight
- The pattern is sustained by rules, pathways and expectations, not merely by individuals.
- Blind spot
- Formal structures reveal only part of the actual conditions for decision-making.
Kanban intervention
- Intervention
- Examine decision rules in concrete services and workflows.
- Changed conditions
- Structures are treated as changeable premises rather than fixed conditions.
- Limits
- Local interventions can perturb organisational patterns, but cannot directly replace them.