Stafford Beer – evaluation framework

An alternative to the Conversational Framework, known as the cybernetic or organisational model, is drawn from the Viable Systems Model for modelling organisational systems proposed by Stafford Beer (1981). This model is useful to understand because, from a change management perspective, when one decides to change one element in a system (such as the teaching and learning process by introducing new software for example), it is necessary to consider the impact on other elements of the system.
 
Liber (1998) suggested that this organisational systems approach may be applicable in a pedagogical context; hence the Viable Systems Model is used by Liber as a way of stratifying the different communication channels into distinct spheres known as:

Resource negotiation
Coordination
Monitoring
Individualisation
Self-organisation
Adaptation