System One
The set of operational units of the System-in-focus, each itself a viable system (DTS 1985: 19). From overview Draft 0.8; not project canon.
What Beer says
- Each unit has “its own relations with the outside world, its own management problems within the corporation and its own control system embedded in the large one” (BOTF 1981: 125, caption to Figure 20).
- “And if any has a special primacy, it is System One — because it consists itself of viable systems.” “And what the viable system does is done by System One” (DTS 1985: 128).
- “never forget that the division is short of a metalanguage. Thus corporate objectives cannot even be expressed in the language of System One” (BOTF 1981: 159).
- Units generate variety “on the horizontal axis of the diagram”; vertical constraints limit this (DTS 1985: 81). How much the metasystem absorbs is the First Axiom (HOE 1979: 217).
Where it sits in the model
It does the work of the viable-system-model. system-two damps oscillation among units; system-three holds inside-and-now. The metasystem may delimit System One autonomy only to preserve coherence of the whole (BOTF 1981: 275). Each unit is a nested viable system (recursion).
Textual notes
Three-part embedment is BOTF Figure 20; primacy/POSIWID is DTS. Horizontal variety sits with the six vertical loops under system-three. BOTF groups One–Three as internal/autonomic stability (BOTF 1981: 76).
Open points
Chapter 7 abstract flags none. First Axiom detail is pointed to chs 3.4 and 9.2.
Related
pure-vsm-part-ii-the-viable-system-model · viable-system-model · system-two · system-three · recursion · viability-identity-and-autonomy