El Sistema Abierto

El sistema abierto
an open system is a system that regularly exchanged feedback with its external environment. open systems are systems, of course, so inputs, processes, outputs, goals, assessment and evaluation, and learning are all important. Aspects that are critically important to open systems include the boundaries, external environment and equifinality.
healthy open systems continouslyexchange feedback with their environments, analyze that feedback, adjust internal systems as needed to achive the system's goals, and then transmit necessary information back out to the environment.
the open systems concept originated in the biological sciences and them migrated into physical and social sciences in the early parts of the 20th century. in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the conceptbegan to be applied in commercial information technology
For many years, information systems buyers limited to only a few major mainframe vendors, with one vendor clearly dominant in the marketplace. Competition was severely limited because a few –and sometimes one- vendor controlled access to the market. A number of different standards organizations initiated open system efforts, sometimes incompetition with each other. Recently, some order was injected into the scene because of more standardization and some degree of convergence appears reasonable
Boundaries
All systems have boundaries, although the boundaries can be difficult to identify because systems can be very dynamic. Open systems have porous boundaries through witch useful feedback can readily be exchanged and understood
Closedsystems, unlike open systems, have hard boundaries through which little information is exchanged. Organizations that have closed boundaries often are unhealthy. Examples include bureaucracies, monopolies and stagnating systems
Outcomes
Outcomes are critically important to the success of an organization, outcomes are in regard to the changes, or benefits, that customer accomplish as a result ofusing a particular product or service. Outcomes are usually specified in terms of changed:
1. Knowledge (usually short-term outcomes).
2. Behaviors, notably those that comprise useful skills (often intermediate outcomes)
3. Attitudes, values and conditions, such as increased security, stability or pride (usually long-term outcomes)
Some examples of outcomes from a product or service are whencustomers learn to read from attending a training, achieve a healthier body by using a health club’s facilities or have a cleaner house from using the company’s vacuum cleaner product. Notice the difference between outcomes (measures of changes in customers) outputs (measure of activities in an organization)
Equifinality (more than one way to accomplish the same result).
Equifinality means that the sameor similar results can be achieved by using a variety of different processes. For example, management can achieve the same results by using different inputs or by using different processes with the same inputs. Equifinality suggests that there is no one right things.
In contrast, closed systems have one right way to do things. For example, in heavily bureaucratic organizations, a person mustfinish the necessary procedures regardless of how useful an intended result will be for the organization –the focus is on doing things right, rather than doing the right things.
The concept of equifinality explains why there is no one right way to lead or manage organizations. It explains why there is no one right way to guide organizational change. You should keep this in mind when adopting varioussolutions-based best practices, diagnostic models an assessment tools
Open system characteristics:
-Use of publicity available and widely used interfaces, languages, data formats an protocols
-critical importance is given to interfaces management an widely used convetions
-heavy emphasis on modularity
-vendor and technology independence
-minimization of the number of types of interfaces
- easier...