Thinking about university futures

Thinking about University Futuresintersections between creativity and

foresight

Maree ConwayThinking Futures

PhD student, Swinburne University of Technology

Beginning

• Understanding how today's management models emerged

• Exploring convergence and divergence in beliefs about university management held by academics and managers: now manifesting itself as a 'divide'

• Exploring how universities and their management might evolve into the future (2030)

• From perspective of people doing the work

• Testing the proposition that the management structures, systems and processes we have in place today will not work in the future university.

• Rather than wait for any new models to be 'imposed' on the university from outside, exploring the future today to begin to close the gap between views about how universities should be managed.

Three Stages of University Management

• 1970s-1990s: hybrid phase

• 1990s- today: divided phase

• today to 2030: ??

IntegralInterior Exterior

Individual

Collective

Causal Layered Analysis (CLA)

Values Beliefs

Assumptions

'Knowledge processes'

Management processes

Idea of the universityRules of the game

LanguageTraditions

External drivers of change

- evolution of capitalism

- technology

Interior Exterior

Individual

Collective

Individual consciousness

OrganisationalBehaviour/Interactions

Social systems/structures

Culture

Integral + CLAFramework

Disrupts

Myth/Metaph

orLitan

y

Social

causes

Worldviews

Change Space

Values Beliefs

Assumptions

'Knowledge processes'

Management processes

Idea of the universityRules of the game

LanguageTraditions

External drivers of change

- evolution of capitalism

- technology

Interior

Exterior

Individual

Collective

Clashes/interactionshere not fullyexplored

Current literature/research focuses heremainly

Researchspace

Challenges…

• Biggest challenge not about external change (right hand quadrants) but about change to our thinking about how we manage universities (left hand quadrants)

• Shapes decisions about organisation, roles, work, management, strategy

Thinking…• What are the drivers of change that will contribute to shaping the future university?

• How will they influence the shape of the future university?

• What management models will be appropriate?

• Will the future university need to be managed at all?

• Who will manage the future university?

• Open and inclusive, based on

diversity of perspectives

• Expanding options, not setting boundaries (at the start anyway)

• Social, collective insights not individual guru/genius led

• Divergent thinking (future) before converging (today)

• Messy process, not linear

• Incomplete information/uncertainty

• Raymond Loewy’s MAYA principle* applies

*Most Advanced Yet Acceptable

Foresight & Creativity…

Interior Exterior

Individual

Collective

UniversityManagement

http://integralthinkers.com/wp-content/uploads/Worldview-Lenses-models-530px.png

Contact Details

Maree Conwayhttp://thinkingfutures.net

maree.conway@thinkingfutures.net

Twitter: @mareeconwayBlog: http//:thinkingfutures.net/blog

Tel: +61 (3) 9016 9506Mobile: +61 (0) 425 770 181

Skype: mkconway1

All photos from fotolia.com unless otherwise stated.