"Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is a formalized methodology that is used to support the requirements, design, analysis, verification, and validation associated with the development of complex systems." (Sevchenko, 2020) Like Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD), Systems Engineering situates design and analysis within a specific environmental and/or organization context including consideration for broad class of stakeholders. A stakeholder is any group or an individual who is affected by or is in some
way accountable for the outcome of the engineering project. Stakeholders considered range from local governments, individual citizens to the ecological processes. Digitalization of the engineering processes have affected everything from public engagement to requirements gathering, analysis, design, monitoring and reporting. MBSE is an evolution in the systems engineering practice that leans into these changes without losing sight of local context, stakeholders and accountabilities. At BlockScience, we apply principles, methods and tools from MBSE to the design and analysis of mechanisms, markets and institutions. The panel will explore the application of MBSE to institutional design and analysis with attention to similarities to and differences from IAD, and other frameworks in use within the IASC community of practice.
Monday, June 16, 2025 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Integrative Learning Center ILCS211
Organizational Navigation Via Institutional Statements
in-person
Michael Zargham1,2 and Christopher Frantz3
1BlockScience, United States, 2Metagov, United States, 3The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
The Institutional Grammar (IG) provides a data model for reasoning about how an organization “moves” through time via the underlying behavioral strategies, norms and rules – its institutions. If the position of an organization is described by its team members, activities, resources, and the relationships between them, then a data set of institutional statements can serve as an estimate of that organization’s velocity. It’s possible to extrapolate an informed estimate of an organization’s future position from knowledge about its current position and its velocity (i.e. its rules, norms and strategies for allocating resources), along with beliefs or projections about its future (external) circumstances. The choices that affect an organization’s velocity thus constitute the form of “steering” commonly called “governance”: the application of forces that directly or indirectly induce changes in organizational space.
This presentation explores recent developments in the formalization of the Institutional Grammar for computational methods, and shares learnings from the design and deployment of an ongoing research initiative focused on applying these developments in a real-world context through the experimental implementation of organizational state estimation at an engineering firm. This initiative involves wiring up a feedback system that uses the firm’s internal data infrastructure to continuously sense data about the organization itself, then parses that data via the IG perspective, and makes it visible to members of the firm – who will then be asked to reflect on its accuracy and usefulness. If it is found to be useful, research will shift to questions of dynamics: What is a sensible time scale for such self-observation and modeling? Shifting from a comparative-static view to a view that captures processes of change, and potentially exposes subtle trends not overtly observable? Can a continuous view of an organization’s “velocity” encourage or enable better “steering” and “navigation” – governance of a real world organization?
