For some time it looked like OST was fading from relevance and was in danger of dying out. Meanwhile, in the software delivery space experienced agile practitioners were becoming disillusioned with what agile had become and were searching for something new. The seeds of a new OST group began when Alidad Hamidi and Trond Hjorteland engaged in a Twitter discussion. Trond guided Alidad and the Systems at Play group (inc. Dave Whitney and Mihail S) to the OST body of knowledge. As the group was based in Australia it was surprised to find that Prof. M. Emery was alive and living in Canberra.
Working with leading OST practitioner-in-the field, Peter Aughton, a course was organised. Prof. Merrelyn’s last training course ran in March 2023. Agile/system thinkers travelled form across Australia, Trond flew in from Norway and Monica Leon (an Organisational Design expert and coach who had found OST independently) came from New Zealand for the course.
Since the course we have been joined by some of Australia’s leading agile thinkers. Due to Trond’s connections in the Domain Driven Design (DDD) and Team Topologies communities we have started working with people in Europe too. We hope to both grow the OST community and connect to the existing Socio-Technical Systems (STS) groups around the world.
If you are interested, reach out to us. We have started a community on LinkedIn and a invitation-only Discord group as we organise to reframe OST for the modern age and disseminate OSTs important message. Let’s change the world of work together!