Models as convenient fictions: Xtreme modelling

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Models as convenient fictions Xtreme modelling?

• M. Pidd
• Department of Management Science
• Lancaster University Management School
• M.Pidd_at_lancaster.ac.uk
• 01524 593870

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Xtreme ironing
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What is a model?
Inputs
Outputs
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What is a model?
A simplified representation of some system or
other
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What is a model?
An external and explicit representation of part
of reality as seen by the people who wish to use
that model to understand, to change, to manage
and to control that part of reality Pidd TFT
(2003), 12
An external and explicit representation of part
of reality as seen by the people who wish to use
that model to understand, to change, to manage
and to control that part of reality Pidd TFT
(2003), 12
An external and explicit representation of part
of reality as seen by the people who wish to use
that model to understand, to change, to manage
and to control that part of reality Pidd TFT
(2003), 12
An external and explicit representation of part
of reality as seen by the people who wish to use
that model to understand, to change, to manage
and to control that part of reality Pidd TFT
(2003), 12
An external and explicit representation of part
of reality as seen by the people who wish to use
that model to understand, to change, to manage
and to control that part of reality Pidd TFT
(2003), 12
A convenient, controllable world?
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Some personal observations engaging with UK
healthcare

• UK local health managers
• Spend most of their time fire-fighting
• Obsessed by the short-term
• Untrained in modelling

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What are people like how do they work?
Mintzberg H. (1973) The nature of managerial
work.
Does this sound familiar?
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Some personal observations

• UK local health managers
• Spend most of their time fire-fighting
• Obsessed by the short-term
• Untrained in modelling
• UK clinicians
• Professional boundaries still matter
• Focus on events and patients
• Poor at taking a systems view
• Absorb technical arguments easily

Implementation is often problematic
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Really Xtreme ironing
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Xtreme modelling?
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How are models used?
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Approaches to modelling health sector
Believing the machine
Better decisions
Detailed
Some approx aggregated
Try before you buy
The future doesnt exist
Rational support in policy debate
Health economy models
Provide insights
Manipulation bias
Broad brush
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Models as rational myths?

• Hatchuel Molet (EJOR 24, 1986, 178-186)
• Rational internal consistency of the
  inferences and deductions used.
• Myth? modelling any human situation and
  conceiving its transformation is not so far away
  from constructing utopia, or fairy tales, even if
  the myth contains technical matters
• Responses from client/users
• Resistance may be sensible. Model may be
  rational, but inappropriate or unable to capture
  important features
• Reinforcement learning. Model enables people to
  see things in a new way and to act appropriately.
• Stays within an objectivist framework

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Models as convenient fictions

• Convenient fictions
• Physics (early 20th Century)
• atoms are a hypothetical conception that affords
  a very convenient picture of matter - Wilhelm
  Ostwald
• atoms and molecules must be treated convenient
  fictions - Ernst Mach
• For modelling
• Models need not be representations of reality
• Models can be used to represent particular views
  in debate
• ?Irrational myths?

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Some modelling myths

• More data ? better models
• Beware data served on a plate (the information
  system)
• Avoid the set menu choose a la carte (special
  data collection)
• High fidelity models are always best
• Approximation helps focus attention
• For whom for what?
• Models only tell us what we put in them
• Model simple, but think complicated
• Be enthusiastically sceptical
• You can think everything through at the start
• Ho ho!
• Its a learning process, for everyone involved

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Approaches to ambiguity uncertainty?
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Is it always good to remove uncertainty and
ambiguity? (Noordegraaf Abma (2003)

• Canonical
• Issues known
• Stds uncontested
• Clear what to do

• In transition
• Stds values contested
• Or not clear what to do

• Non-canonical
• Non-routine, fuzzy, innovative, conflictual

Low-paid interchangeable service delivery staff
Highly professional service delivery staff
Ambiguity uncertainty
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Soft v/s hard modelling
would-be representations of the real world
devices to support debate convenient fictions

• used to investigate options
• supports rational choice
• supports exploration
• validation important

• used as ideal types
• procedural rationality
• supports exploration
• validation problematic

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IS in pictures
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IS in pictures
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IS in pictures?
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eXtreme Programming
eXtreme Programming (XP) was created in response
to problem domains whose requirements change.
Your customers may not have a firm idea of what
the system should do. eXtreme Programming (XP)
is successful because it stresses customer
satisfaction. The methodology is designed to
deliver the software your customer needs when it
is needed. XP empowers your developers to
confidently respond to changing customer
requirements, even late in the life
cycle. http//www.extremeprogramming.org
Perhaps modellers IS people face similar
problems?
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eXtreme Programming
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Bringing it all together?

• Many modelling applications in numerous domains,
  but
• Implementation rate?
• Meaning of implementation?
• Similar problems in IS world?
• Modelling is not a mechanical process
• Different types and uses of models
• Precision is not everything
• Models need not represent reality
• Need to engage with the world of others
• Perhaps IS people and modellers have much in
  common?