Nov. 21 2006 2:00PM

Nov. 21 2006 3:00PM

The purpose of the seminar is to draw attention of the control-theoretic community to the problem of 'optimal control' of human organizations. We will deal among others with the unique features of social systems, dynamic modeling of organizational behavior, prediction of closed-loop performance, deliberate change of performance dynamics, and distributed control of networked organizations.

The problems will be introduced in the context of the following questions: • Can management of human organizations be put on solid theoretical foundations? • Is there any theory of 'scientific' management currently at disposal? • Do we have enough knowledge and understanding to build one? • Why has not the tremendous success of process control in manufacturing industries been followed with similar success in organizational management? • Why are the bulk of management decisions still made through good feel and intuition?

We will examine some of the available concepts, models, and methods, namely Ross Ashby's law of requisite variety, Stafford Beer's viable system model, Jay Forrester's system dynamics, and Ulf Grenander's pattern theory.

Pravidelný seminář Rozhodování a řízení za neurčitosti. (Contact person: Miroslav Kárný)