Editing Stafford Beer (section)

==Work==
[[File:Cybernetic factory.svg|thumb|320px|Sketch for a cybernetic factory, 1959<ref>Stafford Beer, ''Cybernetic and Management'', English Universities Press, p. 150.<!-- publishing info; ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>]]

===Management cybernetics===
According to Jackson (2000) "Beer was the first to apply cybernetics to management, defining cybernetics as the ''science of effective organization''". In the 1960s and early 1970s "Beer was a prolific writer and an influential practitioner" in [[management cybernetics]]. It was during that period that he developed the [[viable system model]], to diagnose the faults in any existing organizational system. In that time [[Jay Wright Forrester|Forrester]] invented [[systems dynamics]], which "held out the promise that the behavior of whole systems could be represented and understood through modeling the dynamical feedback process going on within them".<ref name ="Mich 2000">Michael C. Jackson (2000), ''Systems Approaches to Management''<!-- publishing info; ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

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===Cybersyn===
{{Main|Project Cybersyn}}

[[File:Cybersyn control room.jpg|thumb|240px|left|[[Cybersyn]] operations room, 1972]]
During the [[presidency of Salvador Allende|administration of Salvador Allende in Chile]], in the early 1970s, Beer was closely involved with a visionary project, [[Cybersyn]], to apply his cybernetic theories in government. The project's ultimate goal was to create a network of computers and communications equipment that would support the management of the state-run sector of Chile's economy; at its core would be an operations room where government managers could view important information about economic processes in real time, formulate plans of action, and transmit advice and directives to managers at plants and enterprises in the field.<ref name="RE">Raul Espejo, [http://www.metaphorum.org/proyecto_cybersyn_ingles.pdf Cybersyn] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080227180025/http://www.metaphorum.org/proyecto_cybersyn_ingles.pdf |date=27 February 2008 }}, metaphorum.org; retrieved October 2007.</ref> However, consistent with cybernetic principles and the ideals of the Allende government, its designers aimed to preserve worker and lower-management autonomy instead of implementing a top-down system of centralised control. The system used a network of about 500 [[telex]] machines located at enterprises throughout the country and in government offices in [[Santiago]], some of which were connected to a government-operated [[mainframe computer]] that would receive information on production operations, feed that information into economic modelling software, and report on variables (such as raw material supplies) that were outside normal parameters and might require attention. The project, implemented by a multidisciplinary group of both Chileans and foreigners, reached an advanced prototype stage, but was interrupted by [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|the 1973 coup d'état]].<ref name="RE"/>

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===Viable System Model===
[[File:Vsm.gif|thumb|240px|Principal functions of the [[Viable system model|Viable System Model]], 1975.]]
{{Main|Viable system model}}
The Viable System Model (VSM) is a [[model (abstract)|model]] of the organisational structure of any viable or [[autonomous]] [[system]]. A viable system is any system organised in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. One of the prime features of systems that survive is that they are adaptable. The VSM expresses a model for a viable system, which is an abstracted cybernetic description that is applicable to any organisation that is a viable system and capable of autonomy.

===Syntegration and Team Syntegrity===
{{Anchor|Syntegrity}}Syntegrity is a formal model presented by Beer in the 1990s and now is a registered trademark. It is a form of non-hierarchical problem solving that can be used in a small team of 10 to 42 people. It is a business consultation product that is licensed out to consulting firms. The term comes from the words "[[synergistic]]" and "[[tensegrity]]".<ref>[http://www.syntegrity.com/science.html Syntegration: The Science webpage] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081015040117/http://www.syntegrity.com/science.html |date=15 October 2008 }}, syntegrity.com; accessed 22 August 2015.</ref>

===POSIWID===
{{Main|The purpose of a system is what it does}}
Stafford Beer coined and frequently used the term POSIWID (the purpose of a system is what it does) to refer to the commonly observed phenomenon that the de facto purpose of a system is often at odds with its official purpose. In an address to the [[University of Valladolid]], Spain in October 2001, he said "According to the [[cybernetician]] the purpose of a system is what it does. This is a basic dictum. It stands for bald fact, which makes a better starting point in seeking understanding than the familiar attributions of good intention, prejudices about expectations, moral judgment or sheer ignorance of circumstances."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Beer|first=Stafford|year=2002|title=What is cybernetics?|journal=Kybernetes|volume=31|issue=2|pages=209–219|publisher=MCB UP Ltd|doi=10.1108/03684920210417283}}</ref> This principle has been used to describe Social Machines as intelligent, for example in the case of "games with a purpose",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cristianini |first=Nello |title=The shortcut: why intelligent machines do not think like us |date=2023 |isbn=978-1-003-33581-8 |location=Boca Raton |publisher=CRC Press |oclc=1352480147}}</ref> and it provides a link between AI and cybernetics.