More detail of Professional Development Courses can be found on the Professional Development page in the Resources menu.

Development Day (Members only)
Sunday, 15th January 2012, 10am - 4pm. MBS, Manchester
Members only - Entrance free to members

Open Meeting
Monday, 16th January 2012, 10am - 4.30pm. Room 3.74, MBS, Manchester
Open to all - Entrance is £10

9.30 - 10.00 Reception - Tea/Coffee on ground floor
10.00 - 10.20 SCiO News

10.20 - 11.20 Session 1: Internal coherence and systemic truth - Aiden Ward

An action by a system is beneficial if it tends to maintain the relationships on which the health of the system depends. With Bateson, and later with Maturana, the identity of a system cannot be completed within the boundary of that system.

This session extends our notion of systems tools to include our own internal coherence. This extends thinking from the cognitive to subconscious brain units, seeking to develop synthesising rather than analytic capability. The question raised is what a system does to its environment in the context of the next recursion up.

In the session, Aidan will demonstrate the use of biofeedback to monitor and improve internal coherence as a proxy for systemic truth. This amounts to investigating the biofeedback as an intervention in his own internal control system and the analogues of this intervention in work with organisations. This raises questions about the nature of VSM System 5.

The key application is to understand the notion of coherence for an organisation and how an organisation can learn to align its own control systems. The move is away from the content of what an organisation does and towards a vital signs understanding.

Aidan is the author of ‘Trust and Mistrust: radical strategies in business relationships’. He is a partner in Fractal Consulting and a Director of SCiO. http://www.fractal-consulting.com/

11.40 - 12.40 Session 2: An integrated approach to Leadership Development in SME’s
– Dr. Ann Mulhaney

The LEAD Programme was developed at Lancaster University and due to its initial success was rolled out throughout the North West under a NWDA initiative. LEAD is a 10 month Leadership Development programme that provides a structured framework for learning and reflection. Since 2008 nearly 1,000 delegates have joined the programme.

This session outlines the integrated approach adopted by LEAD and explores the key elements, including action learning sets and one to one coaching sessions that provide the underpinning processes for active learning. The multiple feedback loops that provide synergy are further examined and the key lessons from a delivery angle are outlined.

The programme boasts excellent outputs both to personal and business development which will be presented with particular reference to the six cohorts who have graduated from the Manufacturing Institute programme.

Ann is Programme Director for LEAD at The Manufacturing Institute and MD of M-Prove.
www.mprove.org

1.40 - 2.40 Session 3. Craft Session: Aligning Intra-Personal Systems with Organisational Systems via NLP – David Kerr

Consultants concerned with facilitating desired organisational change overlook the employee role in, and reaction to, potential change at their peril.

This hour-long workshop will briefly discuss the origins of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and highlight some common themes between NLP and systems thinking. If successful organisational change requires commitment and buy-in from employees, NLP suggests that we would be better placed to consider the intra-personal systems at work in order to create change initiatives that are both effective and sustainable.

In order to provide an initial "taster" to NLP for those unfamiliar with the area, the workshop will explore a single NLP concept - that of "meta-programmes" - to consider how catering for the differing information processing and organising preferences of employees might radically improve the traction and subsequent success of proposed change programmes.

David is Founder and MD of Watt Works Consulting Ltd. - www.watt-works.com

3.00 - 4.00 Session 4: Managing Organisational Complexity – Dr. Stephen Brewis

Reducing cost and increasing value are both influenced by complexity. Complexity adds cost to a system. And complexity makes it difficult to deliver, or even understand, the system’s value requirements.

This talk will discuss how “Laws of Form” can be used to create Functional Distinctions that can be used to reduce the organisational complexity of an Enterprise Architecture.

Key words: complexity, distinctions, variety, equivalence class, Enterprise Architecture, Laws of Form.

Stephen is a Business Modelling Consultant with BT
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevebrewis

4.00 - 4.30 Tie-up Debate/Discussion
Afterwards in the Bar …