Tactical Management is an area where businesses can pursue competitive advantage. Lately, it has been under-addressed and even ingested by operational and strategic trends in Management and Information Systems. It needs adaptability as managerial way of thinking and acting along with proper information requirements recognition, in order for the person performing the tactical management function to accomplish best possible outcomes. With our research we are aiming to provide support in increasing the adaptability to changes for tactical management. At the same time, we are mapping the tactical management information system needs, to prove that they are distinctive from strategic, operational and project management information needs and should be addressed accordingly.
ple, the manager) can be put in position to: design, steer and adapt the system towards
a purpose. On the other hand, a system or entity is adaptive when it is able to modify
itself in order to adapt to changes. This is a subtle but paramount difference. We
perceive the company, the team, departments being managed as Complex Adaptive
Systems (CAS). CAS is defined as “A system of individual agents, who have the
freedom to act in ways that are not always totally predictable, and whose actions are
interconnected such that one agent's action changes the context for other agents” such
as departments, organizations, … [
If we incline on some rules of balancing complexity on the ‘Edge of chaos’, we
should not be addressing complex subjects with complex solutions. The ‘edge’ needs
both structure and freedom. The addressing of a complex system needs: (1) Simple
rules; (2) Moderately dense connections; (3) Human rules on: how to detect
information, how to interpret information and how to act in response [
We are proposing that for tactical management one needs to think in terms of ‘system design’, not process flow. The system a tactical manager sets up should be adaptable – one should be able to make modifications to it, so that consequently it adapts to changes. This would be the articulated purposeful adaptable mechanism that should give a framework for the manager to steer and for the CAS to follow. The Tactical Management Information System should capture and assist this behavior appropriately. The research problem is investigated more elaborately in section 3.1. 2
There is almost clear distinction between the ‘efficiency-centric’ and ‘adaptive’
managerial paradigms, in this post-industrial, knowledge-centric era. On one hand,
the “make-and-sell” proponents are prescribing planning, efficiency and business
processes; command-and-control management approach; matrix organizations. On the
other hand, there is the “sense-and-respond” paradigm, where the unpredictability is
expected and further on integrated in the way of working and structuring of the
organization. [
Our definition for tactical management as a managerial function is: How to achieve what is expected by utilizing what is given and following certain governing principles in the current context of the organization and environment. Through these identified constituents for tactical management, we searched for existing state-of-the-art concepts and support, in order to address a gap with unique viewpoint and provision.
Tactical Management Information Systems (TMIS) should be able to provide, record and revise in an adaptable manner, information for the continuous changes occurring in the behavior of the socio-technical system and its environment.
Issue 1: In our investigation, the Tactical Management Information Systems and
Managerial Methods are somewhat omitting [
Issue 2: With regards to the necessity for adaptability, of the person dealing with
tactical management, and of the system that person is managing, we are emphasizing
several components that introduce constantly changing environment and degree of
unpredictability. We identify two kinds of ‘context’ that tactical management needs to
take in consideration – organizational context and environmental context, where
changes occur, especially for tactical management. The different approaches in
literature perceive enterprise-wide or business process adaptability [
Issue 3: The Person dealing with TM is not supported with appropriate artifacts (investigation elaborated in section 3.1). Current artifacts offer organizational view, or if aimed for the manager (senior, project, operational) they don’t involve tactical issues to substantial extent (Strategic management – Balanced ScoreCard, Triple Bottom Line, The Performance Prism; Project management – PMBOK, Product Lifecycle; Operational management – Agile, Scrum, Lean) 3
Design Science Research is gaining importance in current Information Systems
research [
During the course of the research, the main focus of the initial stage of the investigation was recognizing a problem. We started the research by conducting semistructured interviews with 30 managers on various levels (Senior, Middle, Project managers, SME Owners) from, mostly international companies, but also SMEs situated in Belgium and in Macedonia, with geographic scope of work nationally and internationally. This activity supported the more accurate positioning of the problem; and provided us with expert opinions on various practices (Fig.1, labels 1a, 1b). Also, we investigated current State-of-the-Art contributions in literature, for tactical management adaptability and information systems (Fig.1, label 1c).
By interviewing managers in companies, we identified existence of lack of
appropriate support with reports, information flows and ability to obtain them per request;
treatment of the tactical management needs with approach identical as either
operational management (with big data and no latency) or strategic management (with KPIs
and quarterly reports, somewhat too late or inadequate) etc. The most frequent answer
from the managers, on how they are addressing the issue of handling the mismatch
between what is needed and what is provided, was by extracting the relevant data
from reports in ERP systems and manually shaping it in Excel or by hand. This way
they had been able to reach the needed information scope, structure, depth, manner of
obtaining, and updating cycles. Furthermore, tactical management denotes ongoing
and ‘runtime’ [
After being supported with practitioner real-life problems that confirmed our initial standpoint, expert opinions of different practices regarding tactical management, we consulted literature for proper academic ground for design (Label 2a on Fig.1)
Currently, the approaches investigated in literature, provide adaptability as
adjustment, predefinition, corporate agility, or response modeling [
We used the Sense-and-Respond framework as foundation for the research
contribution in TM. It provides (1) System Design and (2) Sense-Interpret-Decide-Act
Loop for continuous discovering of early signals, reasoning upon them, and
introducing changes and reconfiguration to the system accordingly. The main elements of the
framework are purpose, strategy, structure, governance, which we are attempting to
shape for the use of tactical management. The system is designed of roles and
accountabilities, towards a purpose. Strategy is the “modular system design of roles and
accountabilities” and in S&R organizations “structure is strategy”. The governance “is
the systematic propagation and assurance of global policy constraints to all roles in
the organization”. [
The foundations of the design throughout the research have been encompassing existing theoretical frameworks and concepts in: Information Systems, Management (Strategic management, Leadership, Operational management), Knowledge Management, Complexity theory, Complex Adaptive Systems, Behavioral science, Systems theory, Network theory with Social Network Analysis, Social Systems Design, as well as Research Methodology, Design Science Research, Action Design Research and Behavioral Research. 3.3
The Design cycle took place in constant communication with Practitioners and
Academics (Fig. 1, Labels 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d). We collaborated with 4 Companies for the
Action Design Research (ADR) [
In the 4 organizational contexts-companies, the artifact design has been going through Alpha-version – in Company 2 (Belgium) and Company 3(Macedonia) we have investigated a tactical management issue – and proposed a Sense-and-Respond solution for the management to follow; Company 2(Belgium) – Optimizing staff utilization across projects (Microsoft Dynamic Implementations and Consultancy) and Company 3 (Macedonia) Shifting the Customer Perception for the Company (from only geodesic services to engineering, geodesic and consultancy services). The Betaversion took place in Company 1(Belgium) and Company 4(Macedonia) where we have investigated a tactical management issue – proposed S&R solution for the management to follow – and one manager in the companies carried on the usage of the design throughout next months to register all the information needs (Information Sensors, Emitters, Risks), changes as well as all system re-design needs – in Company 1(Belgium) – Enable customer’s management to spend least time possible on remote communication with geographically scattered staff members; in Company 4(Macedonia) – Provide earliest information for status and discrepancies to management in a new factory construction and equipment alignment project.
To properly position a tactical management issue in the companies, we performed in-depth analysis of the company, business, mission, vision, goals, strategy, current systems, tactical management approach, expectations and SWOT analysis by conducting interviews, panel discussions with the End-users and cross-discussions with the management. We tried to point out the usefulness of the ADR in their company both for the researchers and for the company utilized their expert opinion and constructive criticism which was valuable for the outcome. After start, we trained the End-users with the primitive concepts and roadmap of the S&R framework.
We will argue that our Action Design Research has enabled us, throughout the timeline of 14 months of work with the End-Users, to go through advancing the Alpha- and Beta- versions of the design. We approached each manager and company with the same initially designed version of the initial artifact (in Excel Workbook of 4 sheets) which they filled and individually revised by performing the SIDA loop, but we informed each newly involved manager with the benefits of the use from the previous ones. It is certain to say that the ‘learning’ on the side of the researchers, has been communicated with the End-Users back and forth.
Our Design and Results so far. The artifact-in-construction (a method for the manager- the person) we tested with practitioners in the ADR has been consisted of the following investigation of adaptability and information system self-design: 1. Designing a System, according the Sense-and-Respond Framework principles (Visualizing and Specifying Purpose, Governing Principles, Role and Accountability, Conditions of Satisfaction) 2. Designing Information Sensors – what the manager would need to have as information to have overview of his system (Visualization, Attributes and Indicators) 3. Designing the Information Emitters – what the tactical manager would like to have been told by the other roles in order to be aware on time for possible issues disturbing the agreed outcomes (Visualization, Attributes and Indicators) 4. Designing the Risk Management (Visualization, Attributes and Indicators) Adaptability component 1 - The Re-negotiations for outcomes, every role can perform through conditions of satisfaction, in order to adapt to changes. Adaptability component 2 – Introducing and terminating roles and accountabilities. Adaptability component 3 – Populating roles according human resources/systems.
We consider the Sense-Interpret-Decide-Act loop as perpetual engine to adaptability, which enables the system designer (manager) to continuously scan the organizational and environmental context for changes, and receive early warning signals, on the entities previously incorporated in the widest system of Roles and Accountabilities. This opens the radars (Information Sensors, Emitters and Risks) and initiates information flows with variable content, frequency, type, manner of obtaining etc. The SIDA loop helps the managers reduce unexpected events and self-design the information system needs, on an ongoing basis, and identify whether some activity or information flow needed to be more efficient or automatized.
To present at least one of the resulting visualizations that present the system design and the tactical management information system, we are using the Social Network Analysis (SNA) tool – bipartite graph with nodes (for roles and information needs) and edges (for accountabilities). The two types of entities used in the graph are Roles and Information Sensors, Emitters, Risks. Of course, such a static view (Fig. 2) for something so alive and changing, such as the Complex Adaptive Systems on one side, and our Sense-and-Respond system on the other, is not enough. But when presented on a timeline – using SNA timeline feature – the alive, adaptable, adaptive and flexible nature of tactical management and its information system needs comes before our eye-view. 3.4
By conceptually positioning a manager to design and maintain a
Sense-andRespond system that is adaptable to the changes and unpredictability in order to
manage a Complex Adaptive System towards a purpose, we are aiming to assist the
manager in fulfilling this task successfully. Our focus on tactical management is
purposeful because it has been under-addressed and to some extent inappropriately
addressed [
Acknowledgements. This research has been under valuable mentoring of Prof. Dr. Geert Poels, UGent, Gent, Belgium and Prof. Dr. Gjorgji Manceski, UKLO, Bitola, Macedonia as a Double PhD Degree pursuit.