The

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TheOne Page Management System(OPMS)

• An Operating System for the Human Mind

We can justify this bold claim through a live
demonstration
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OPMS is The practical, effective means to
accomplish Missions
A Mission is any challenging goal or objective
that may require considerable effort, time,
resources to accomplish

• All kinds of Missions can be tackled more
  effectively through the OPMS
• Organisational Missions
• Individual Missions
• Societal Missions

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No limitations as to Mission!

• Just identify the Mission
• Ask people involved some trigger questions
  about the Mission - enable them to articulate and
  clarify their good ideas
• Structure (or organise) the ideas generated
• Integrate everything so that it becomes a
  continuing process
• Regular, steady work on Mission is required!

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A picture of the OPMS
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MISSION To enable each member of our staff to
develop most effectively
Mission
A comprehensive system to help accomplish ANY
Mission
EVENTS /MILESTONES that may occur during progress
towards Mission
OPPORTUNITIES Preparation Required to avail
Opportunities to accomplish Mission
STRENGTHS (available)STRENGTHS (required) that
may help accomplishment of Mission
WEAKNESSES that may HINDER/PREVENT
accomplishment of Mission
BARRIERS / DIFFICULTIES / THREATS that may
hinder/prevent accomplishment of Mission
FundamentalDimensions
Dimensionsabove System Tie Line
THINGS TO DO to accomplish Mission
Represents any or all of the relationships in the
system
SystemDimensions, derived from Fundamental
Dimensions
Finance ControlSystem
ProductionSystem(s)
Dimensions below System Tie Line
InformationSystems
Monitoring EvaluationSystem(s)
PlanningSystem
MarketingSystem
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OPMS - helps users develop a comprehensive view
of any Mission

• Comprehensive view, crystallized onto a single
  page - regardless how large/complex the Mission
  may be!
• We can always drill down to any level of detail
  required!

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OPMS - to help accomplish Missions effectively!

• A uniquely powerful aid to problem solving and
  decision making
• Create effective Action Plans, to enable
  accomplishment of any Mission of current interest

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Some example Missions
To enable each member of our staff to develop
most effectively
To ensure effective Knowledge Management in the
organisation
To reduce inventory held by 20 within six
months
To increase turnover to Rs 2000 crores, with
PAT of Rs 500 crores
To make the best decisions continuingly in
complex situations
To make the right investment decisions for our
current needs
To become an expert at the C computer language
To become a top-level consultant within 3 years
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OPMS - helps users articulate their ideas about
any Mission by asking them appropriate Trigger
Questions
The Mission

• What, in your opinion, are the THINGS TO DO to
  enable each member to develop himself/herself
  for the needs of the organisation (and for
  himself/herself)?

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Responding to Trigger Questions

• To challenge each member of staff to develop
  himself/herself to maximum possible for his/her
  own and for organisations benefit
• To make our organisation a truly exciting place
  to work in
• To enable each person develop himself/herself as
  an individual AND as a member of the organisation
• To provide all needed facilities for effective
  work and recreation
• To provide effective counseling for perceived
  needs of staff
• (etc, etc)

Elements articulated in natural language, no
jargon needed - as they come to mind, no need to
worry about order
All good ideas to accomplish the Mission
Stage I A process for generating and clarifying
available ideas
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On any relevant issue about which we are asked
trigger questions - we ALWAYS have ideas!
Because of Stage 2 (to be described), we have a
process that GUARANTEES that every good idea,
whenever it comes to mind, could be integrated
into our Action Plans!
The secret is to make effective use of all good
ideas, filter out the irrelevant or not-so-good
ideas!
The conventional approaches DO NOT adequately
enable effective utilisation of the good ideas of
people at all levels of the organisation
The greatest demotivator is the feeling that our
good ideas are not being adequately valued by the
organisation
An effective process is needed to handle ideas
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Stage 2 - Idea Structuring!
Both Stage 1 (Idea Generation Clarification)
and Stage 2 (Idea Organisation) are designed to
make the best possible use of available ideas!
Idea organising is something we are doing
intuitively ALL the time - OPMS merely makes the
process rigorous and scientific
(or Idea Organising) this is the process that
enables us to organize our ideas to ensure that
the right ones become available for action at any
point of time.
It is done through a process of modeling to show
us, for instance, how the accomplishment of one
idea or element may help the accomplishment of
another
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Idea organising suppose we have just two ideas -

• To challenge each member of staff to develop
  himself/herself to maximum possible for his/her
  own and for organisations benefit (1)
• To make our organisation a truly exciting place
  to work in (2)

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To structure them, we just ask ourselves a
couple of questions
Does the achievement of
Challenging each member of staff to develop
himself/herself to maximum possible for his/her
own and for organisations benefit (1)
Such modeling questions help us articulate and
clarify the linkages we perceive between the
factors in our system
HELP THE ACHIEVEMENT OF
making our organisation a truly exciting place to
work in (2) ?
Response YES
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The question is reversed
Does the achievement of
making our organisation a truly exciting place to
work in (2)
Such responses represent the relationships
perceived by the modelers at a particular period
in time - these perceptions could and often do
change!
HELP THE ACHIEVEMENT OF
Challenging each member of staff to develop
himself/herself to maximum possible for his/her
own and for organisations benefit (1)?
Response NO
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We dont show the no contributions
Model at this stage
Accomplish (1) to enhance accomplishment of (2)!
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Model at this stage
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• Then, a third element is added to our model

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Make our organisation a truly exciting place to
work in (2)
To provide all needed facilities for effective
work and recreation (3)
Challenge each member of staff to develop
himself/herself to maximum possible for his/her
own and for organisations benefit (1)
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Read bottom-upwards, in direction of
arrows.THINK the elementsREAD the arrows as
encountered!
Stage II An effective process for organising
all available ideas
Interpretive Structural Model
The relationship is the heart of the matter!
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The model is based on transitivity of the
relationship were working with
If A B AND if B C THEN
A MUST C
This property is already familiar to most of us
through the transitive relationship precedes,
which is familiar to us through PERT Gantt
Charts (the major modeling tools in Project
Management Software)
Because of transitivity, it is quite efficient to
create these models, as we have to ask only a
small fraction of the total number of possible
questions
where A, B, C are elements in the system
under consideration and represents a
specific transitive relationship
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• Because of transitivity, we can generally create
  these ISMs by responding to just 15-40 of all
  the possible questions between elements

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There are many types of structures, each based on
a specific transitive relationship. Particularly
useful for Action Planning' are Intent
Structures - structures comprised of intents
linked by the should help accomplish
relationship
These models can become as large as required to
describe the most complex live situation! Over
time, as we work on our Missions, our models may
come to comprise hundreds or even thousands of
elements!
Interpretive Structural Model
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Even when we have thousands of elements
integrated into our model, we shall be able to
focus on a narrow band of elements in the full
confidence that by so doing we are actually
helping to accomplish everything else that needs
to be done for the project!
The model may keep on growing until the Mission
is successful!
THINGS TO DO

Current focus
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Interpretive Structural Model
Another important attribute of such Intent
Structures
To enable each member of our staff to develop
most effectively
Up ? WHY?
Down ? HOW?
To make our organisation a truly exciting place
to work in
WHY?
To help each person develop himself/herself as an
individual
HOW?
To provide effective counseling for perceived
needs of staff
To challenge each member of staff develop
himself/herself to maximum possible
To provide all needed facilities for effective
work and recreation
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To ensure effective handling of a task by people
reporting to you, just enthuse them about the
WHYs? of the task - then let them work out the
HOWs? !!!
UP the model to find out WHY? DOWN the model
to find out HOW?
To be able to discover the HOW? and the WHY?
of things is probably the greatest motivator that
exists!
THINGS TO DO
WHY?
HOW?
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Rewards includei) Financial rewardsii) Other
rewards working conditions, etc...
My personal rewards
Organisations profits
My personal performance
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Read bottom-upwards, in direction of
arrows.THINK the elementsREAD the arrows as
encountered!
Interpretive Structural Model
Any such model can easily be translated into
standard prose very easily indeed! And this
little model would translateinto nearly a full
page of prose.Models of 30 to 40 elements may
amount to 20 to 30 pages !Obviously, it is MUCH
easier to read, understand and remember the
model!
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THINGS TO DO
The prose translations of such models increase
exponentially in size with increase of number of
elements in the model!
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The process helps develop clear linkages between
individuals aims to the organisations Mission!
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Rewards includei) Financial rewardsii) Other
rewards working conditions, etc...
Helps ensure that individual actually see
properly understand appreciate the linkages
between him/her and the organisation!
My personal rewards
Organisations profits
My personal performance
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Read bottom-upwards, in direction of
arrows.THINK the elementsREAD the arrows as
encountered!
Interpretive Structural Model
Make clear to all the excitement of working at a
exciting job, in an exciting company!
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The processes underlying OPMS are quite unique in
their power and universal applicability!.
Whatever the issue (or Mission), this initial
part of the OPMS process enables users to create
an effective Action Plan, along with all needed
systems, to accomplish the Mission.
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A quick comparison of models using two specific
relations

• Should help achieve (ISM)
• Usable at every stage of project - in particular,
  its perfect for exploration!
• Can handle all types of elements within system,
  e.g. motivation, etc
• Co-relates with effectiveness
• Ideas, Creativity, motivation, etc are
  effectively handled through contributes or
  should help achieve

• Precedes (PERT/Gantt)
• Useful when intricacies of system are somewhat
  known to us
• Can handle ONLY elements connected with time
  process
• Cannot handle soft issues like motivation
• Co-relates with efficiency

Action Planning done through conventional
Project Management software is bound to leave out
many significant elements (and issues)
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Actually, in order to properly understand our
whole system we need to use a number of
relationships, each appropriate to its own time
and place!
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Some important transitive relationships in
systems

• helps achieve (contributes to) -
  aggravates
• enhances supports leads to includes
  implies should take priority over
  facilitates
• precedes - for scheduling of anticipated
  events/milestones in a well-understood system -
  however, precedence is practically useless for
  working in systems of which significant parts are
  unknown
• and many others

Using appropriate relationships, we can cover ALL
aspects of the systems we need to create
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Another modeling tool in the OPMS
This is the tool that actually helps us create
the OPMS!
Field Representation (FR) Method
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Constructing a Field Representation

• First, we try to cleanse our minds from all
  pre-conceived categories...
• Then, OPMS asks questions like

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Field Representation Profiling (contd.)
(Elements from documents on National IT Mission
formulated several years ago by Govt. of India)

• (In the context of the kind of actions needed to
  overcome the barriers, etc.)
• Is
• (B) Need to improve productivity of Indian
  software industry
• IN THE SAME CATEGORY AS
• (A) Our educational systems are not adequately
  effective
• ?

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Response YES would put element B into the
same category as A -NO would put it into a
different category as shown, next
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Field Representation - after initial response

• A Dimension 1
• Our educational systems are not adequately
  effective

• B Dimension 2
• Need to improve productivity of Indian software
  industry

Finally yielding models like the one illustrated
at next slide...
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Dimension titles provided later, AFTER insertion
of elements into dimensions!
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The System Tie Line represents any or all of
the relationships inherent in the system under
consideration.
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The elements are linked by appropriate
relationships as perceived by the users




















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The OPMS provides a facility to enable users
write down prose translations of such visual
linkages




XYZ





XYZ MAY TEND TO INCREASE THE SEVERITY OF
ABC
A comprehensive network of relationships to be
built up step-by- step, over time, to enable
clear understanding of the system represented in
the Field







ABC




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It takes a while to develop the skills needed to
use the System Tie Line effectively to link
different dimensions and elements togetherIts
well worth our while to work towards developing
these skills
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because, as earlier claimed, Field
Representations, over sufficient iterations, can
be shown to satisfy a fundamental systems law,
called Ashbys Law of Requisite Variety
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Ashbys Law of Requisite Variety (Simple Simons
version)

• The dimensions of a proposed solution to a
  problem must match the dimensions of the problem
• (If too few dimensions, the solution wont
  work if too many, the solution would be too
  expensive or too complicated!)

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The Field Representation processis found to be
the ideal tool for handling complex projects - to
help us integrate the parts into a whole !
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Because the OPMS is a model of models, it ensures
the development in users of Chris Argyris grand
concept of double-loop learning!
On deeper examination, we find there are actually
many more loops than just two - and we can handle
them all through this process. We we could call
our process cybernetic learning
The OPMS is a model of models - it is comprised
of ALL the models that are created in various
relevant dimensions during progress towards the
Mission - any Mission!
Integrating all the models of all the work done
towards any Mission into a single Field
Representation creates a One Page Management
System (OPMS).
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MISSION To enable each member of our staff to
develop most effectively
Mission
EVENTS /MILESTONES that may occur during progress
towards Mission
OPPORTUNITIES Preparation Required to avail
Opportunities to accomplish Mission
STRENGTHS (available)STRENGTHS (required) that
may help accomplishment of Mission
Dimensionsabove System Tie Line
BARRIERS / DIFFICULTIES / THREATS that may
hinder/prevent accomplishment of Mission
WEAKNESSES that may HINDER/PREVENT
accomplishment of Mission
FundamentalDimensions
THINGS TO DO to accomplish Mission
SystemDimensions(derived from Fundamental
Dimensions)
Monitoring EvaluationSystem(s)
ProductionSystem(s)
MarketingSystem
Dimensionsbelow System Tie Line
Finance ControlSystem
InformationSystems
PlanningSystem
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The whole system on a single page!
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Linkages between various dimensions above the
System Tie Line of the OPMS are broadly
illustrated below and in following slides
A THINGS TO DO
HINDER
HELP ACCOMPLISH
B BARRIERS
HELP OVERCOME
C STRENGTHS
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more linkages
Opportunities
HELP AVAIL
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(No Transcript)
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These models can become as detailed as required,
right down to the level of

• WHICH BARRIERS hinder WHICH ACTIVITIES?
• WHICH STRENGTHS are required to overcome WHICH
  BARRIERS?
• All this and more becomes clear as the OPMS is
  developed!

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Recall that we have two types of models...
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Interpretive Structural Model
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(No Transcript)
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Linkages between BARRIERS THINGS TO DO
The barrier marked in the FR HINDERS /
PREVENTS accomplishment of the objective marked
in the ISM
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Linkages between BARRIERS THINGS TO DO
That barrier also hinders accomplishment of all
elements above the THING TO DO that it directly
hinders!
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Linkages between BARRIERS THINGS TO DO
Just identify appropriate means to overcome the
barrier identified - and integrate those into the
Action Plan!
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Some features of the OPMS

• Ensures rapid evaluation of project feasibility -
  helps ensure ensure that time is not wasted on
  infeasible projects
• Provides a comprehensive view of the project,
  crystallised on a single page
• Enables each individual/group to drill down to
  the level of detail required for his/her
  functions
• Links up individual performance to the
  performance of the whole organisation
• Links up individual goals to Organisational
  Missions
• Enforces high level of self-discipline in the
  organisation
• Enables people to create practical,
  clearly-understood means to overcome Barriers,
  Threats, Weaknesses, etc - at EACH level in the
  organisation

Its THE most powerful and systematic tool
available to enable the good ideas of people
involved in problems and issues
Its Cybernetic Learning!
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OPMS - its TOP-DOWN BOTTOM-UP!

• It is top-down because we choose a Mission
  for the whole organisation (or part of it that we
  need to consider)
• It is bottom-up because the Action Plan to
  accomplish the Mission is made effective from the
  bottom upwards

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Can readily be integrated with any process that
is currently being used
? Standard Project Management ? TQM ? Balance
Score Card ? Theory of Constraints ? e-Think
(Kepner Tregoe) ? Any other...
OPMS would help make any such practice very
significantly stronger
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References

• JN Warfields contributions http//www.ajarmail.c
  om
• G.S. Chandy temporary URL http//onepagems.tripod
  .com

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Our Services

• Half-day workshops for individuals, and up to two
  people
• User workshops - 2-Day 3-Day Workshops
  (groups from 8-12 people)
• Facilitator Training - 2 sessions of 5 days
  each with 3-month interval in-house project work
  during the 3 months interval
• Supply of OPMS software

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G.S. Chandy c/o Sahi Oretrans Pvt Ltd30 Western
India HouseSir P.M. Road, FortMumbai - 400
001India e-mail chandygs_at_hotmail.com