ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that successful projects and programs depend crucially on the architecture firms used to support and coordinate innovation and change in the round. It proposes that portfolio, program and project management operates through a mediating architecture that brings together research and development, organizational change, innovation and knowledge management, business strategy and strategic marketing. The parts of a system help to produce “emergent” – or synergistic – properties and capabilities that characterize the system at a higher, collective level of analysis. The chapter describes the Viable System Model (VSM) as a meta theory for designing effective organizational structures. VSM provides a powerful way of looking at the effective design of organizations, including identifying their necessary component parts. VSM conceives of organizations as existing within a wider environment and having five component systems: operations, coordination, delivery management, development and policy.
