All technology, including information technology, is a means. The end is the satisfaction of the various organizational stakeholders, both intrinsically (in the pursuit of their objectives) as well as extrinsically (in the accomplishment of those objectives). A fundamental tenet of systems thinking is that the conception of ends should precede any conception of means.
The first phase of my decision on Ackoff's assumptions deals with all the issues that have to do with the critical deficiency under which most managers operate is the lack of relevant information however, technology is also subject to the law of the hammer: Give a person a hammer, and everything begins to look like a nail in need of pounding! Or: If we've got it, we may as well use it. In other words, availability of information tends to have a seductive nature that makes it generate its own unintended uses and impacts. These unintended impacts have to do with not only unintended (and sometimes undesirable) uses of......
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Approximate Pages: 2 (260 words per double-spaced page) |