ORGANISATIONSWe can use the human body as a metaphor for an organisation...

The human body is comprised of several systems...

nervous system

skeletal system

lymphatic system circulatory system

digestive system

respiratory system

We require all of these systems to work together to enable us to have capabilities such as:

If any of the systems are not working to enable these capabilities, our ability to be capable in that activity is compromised. We are relying on our bodies’ various systems to be in alignment to enable capability.

walking driving eating talking

We can also think about

organisations in terms of systems

lear

ning

cultu

re

proc

ess

tech

nolo

gy

soci

al

infr

astr

uctu

re

Examples of organisational capabilities could include:

teaching childrenanalysing dataprocuring productsserving coffee...

theSyllk

model In organisations we need to ensure that each of these six elements are aligned to enable all the capabilities

we want our organisation to be able to perform or deliver.

Servingcoffee

Procuringsupplies

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Learning Culture

Process Technology

More information...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX65v_mz24g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cGg7rKCuSE

Duffield, S & Whitty, SJ 2015, 'Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model for organisational learning through projects', International Journal of Project Management, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 311-24

The Syllk model helps us to remember that any organisational capability is not just in the experience and skills of staff (‘learning’), but also in the organisation’s culture, its social structures, infrastructure, technology and processes. Failure to recognise this distribution of capability across multiple systems (the Syllk elements) is like assuming that we only need a muscular and skeletal system to walk. We actually need many biological systems (including our nervous system and our cardio-vascular system) to work together to enable the human capability of walking.

Within an organisation, if we are creating a new capability, or are not performing a capability as we would like, we need to consider whether we have all the Syllk elements aligned towards achieveing that capability. If we have the required ‘learning’ and ‘infrastructure’ elements, but the other Syllk elements are working against the capability - there will be problems!

theSyllk

model

of the Syllk elements required for the capability to serve coffee:example

Stephen Duffield em: stephen@invictaprojects.com.au Dr Jon Whitty em: whitty@usq.edu.au

Baristra training Passion for coffee drinking

Coffee making machineOptimised division of tasks

note: there are likely many more examples of each Syllk element... we have only shown one example of each element

Staff skills and expertise

Attitude and values

Social

Peer rapport

Relationships between staff and others

Infrastructure

Kitchen area

Physical facilities

and spaces

routines practices for tasks and artefacts

tools, equipment and IT systems

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ORGANISATIONS

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