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Systems Thinking

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Systems Thinking

Systems Thinking is a proven approach for developing innovative solutions to messy situations that often seem like intractable dilemmas. Would you like to know more?

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Systems thinking is a mental model that promotes the belief that the component parts of a system will act differently when isolated from its environment or other parts of the system, and argues against Descartes's reductionist view. It includes viewing systems in a holistic manner, rather than through purely reductionist techniques. It promotes gaining insights into the whole by understanding the linkages and interactions between the elements that comprise the whole "system", consistent with systems philosophy. Systems Thinking recognizes that all human activity systems are open systems; therefore, they are affected by the environment in which they exist. Systems Thinking recognizes that in complex systems events are separated by distance and time; therefore, small catalytic events can cause large changes in the system. Systems thinking acknowledges that a change in one area of a system can adversely affect another area of the system; thus, it promotes organizational communication at all levels in order to avoid the silo effect.

Systems thinkers consider that:

  • a "system" is a dynamic and complex whole, interacting as a structured functional unit
  • information flows between the different elements that compose the system
  • a system is a community situated within an environment
  • information flows from and to the surrounding environment via semi-permeable membranes or boundaries
  • systems are often composed of entities seeking equilibrium, but can exhibit oscillating, chaotic, or exponential growth/decay behavior

For further details see complex system

Contents

Why use systems thinking techniques? 

Systems thinkers are particularly interested in studying systems because changing a system frequently leads to counterintuitive system responses. For example feedback loops may operate to either keep the organization in check or unbalance it.

Traditional decision making tends to involve linear cause and effect relationships. By taking a systems approach, we can see the whole complex of bidirectional interrelationships. Instead of analysing a problem in terms of an input and an output, for example, we look at the whole system of inputs, processes, outputs, feedback, and controls. This larger picture will typically provide more useful results than traditional methods.

System thinking also helps us integrate the temporal dimension of any decision. Instead of looking at discrete "snapshots" at points in time, a systems methodology will allow us to see change as a continuous process.

Systems Thinking is a worldview based on the perspective of the systems sciences, which seeks to understand interconnectedness, complexity and wholeness of components of systems in specific relationship to each other. Systems thinking is not only constructivist, rather systems thinking embraces the values of reductionist science by understanding the parts, and the constructivist perspectives which seek to understand wholes, and more so, the understanding of the complex relationships that enable 'parts' to become 'wholes' as noted in the example below.

What is a system?

A system is any set (group) of interdependent or temporally interacting parts. Parts are generally systems themselves and are composed of other parts, just as systems are generally parts or components of other systems.

Systems thinking techniques may be used to study any kind of system -- natural, scientific, human, or conceptual.

Examples

Systems thinking often involves considering a "system" in different ways:

Rather than trying to improve the braking system on a car by looking in great detail at the composition of the brake pads (reductionist), the boundary of the braking system may be extended to include not only the components of the car, but the driver, the road and the weather, and considering the interactions between them.

Looking at something as a series of conceptual systems according to multiple viewpoints. A supermarket could be considered as a "profit making system" from the perspective of management, an "employment system" from the perspective of the staff, and a "shopping system" -- or perhaps an "entertainment system" -- from the perspective of the customers. As a result of such thinking, new insights may be gained into how the supermarket works, why it has problems, or how changes made to one such system may impact on the others.

Methodologies

Systems thinking uses a variety of techniques that may be divided into:

  • Hard systems - involving simulations, often using computers and the techniques of operations research. Useful for problems that can justifiably be quantified. However it cannot easily take into account unquantifiable variables (opinions, culture, politics, etc), and may treat people as being passive, rather than having complex motivations.
  • Soft systems - Used to tackle systems that cannot easily be quantified, especially those involving people interacting with each other or with "systems". Useful for understanding motivations, viewpoints, and interactions but, naturally, it doesn't give quantified answers. Soft systems is a field that the academic Peter Checkland has done much to develop. Morphological analysis is a complementary method for structuring and analysing non-quantifiable problem complexes.
  • Evolutionary systems - the development of Evolutionary Systems Design by Bela H. Banathy integrates critical systems inquiry and soft systems methodologies to create a meta-methodology applicable to the design of complex social systems. These systems, similar to dynamic systems are understood as open, complex systems, but further accounts for their potential capacity to evolve over time. Banathy uniquely integrated the multidisciplinary perspectives of systems research (including chaos, complexity, cybernetics), cultural anthropology, evolutionary theory, and others.

Applications

Systems thinking is increasingly being used to tackle a wide variety of subjects in fields such as management, computing, engineering and the environment.

See also

Bibliography

  • Russell L. Ackoff (1999) Ackoff's Best NY: Wiley
  • Bela H. Banathy (1996) Designing Social Systems in a Changing World NY: Plenum
  • Bela H. Banathy (2000) The Guided Evolution of Society NY: Plenum/Kluwer Academic
  • John Gall (1978) Systemantics Pocket Books
  • Peter M. Senge (1990) The Fifth Discipline - The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization (Currency Doubleday).
  • Gerald M. Weinberg (1975) An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (1975 ed., Wiley-Interscience) (2001 ed. Dorset House).
  • Joseph O'Connor, Ian McDermott (1997) The Art of Systems Thinking: Revolutionary Techniques to Transform Your Business and Your Life HarperCollins.
  • Bradford Keeney(1983) Aesthetics of Change Guilford Press
  • Peter_Checkland (1981) Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. (Wiley)
  • Peter_Checkland Jim Scholes (1990) Soft Systems Methodology in Action. (Wiley) ISBN 0-471-92768-6
  • Charles L. Hutchins (1996) Systemic Thinking: Solving Complex Problems CO:PDS ISBN 1-888017-51-1
  • Tom Ritchey (2002) General Morphological Analysis: A General Method for Non-Quantified Modelling

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Systems Thinking

See Systems Thinking

Systems thinking provides tools and approaches to problem solving. (Soft Systems Methodology) and architecture and design (Hard Systems Methodology .. like Systems Engineering).

See Peter Checkland 's book, Systems Thinking, Systems Practice for more information on Soft Systems Methodology (SSM)

Another good reference site: SystemsWiki

SystemWiki on YouTube

Cybernetics and view of Systems Thinking evolution

Systems Thinking for Managers

See also System Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers

By Michael C. Jackson

Many approaches

Keyword Link IconSystems Thinking References


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In systems thinking, an object is considered as a set of interrelated and/or interacting elements. The functions, properties and structure of elements, even the way of system segmentation onto elements, may depend on the goals of studies of the object.(Theory of Classification)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking

Depiction of systems thinking about society

Complex systems
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Evolution and adaptation

Pattern formation

Systems theory and cybernetics

Nonlinear dynamics

Game theory

Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts.[1][2] It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective action in complex contexts,[3] enabling systems change.[4][5] Systems thinking draws on and contributes to systems theory and the system sciences.[6]

History

Main article: Systems theory § History

Ptolemaic system versus the Copernican system

The term system is polysemic: Robert Hooke (1674) used it in multiple senses, in his System of the World,[7]: p.24 but also in the sense of the Ptolemaic system versus the Copernican system[8]: 450 of the relation of the planets to the fixed stars[9] which are cataloged in Hipparchus and Ptolemy's Star catalog.[10] Hooke's claim was answered in magisterial detail by Newton's (1687) Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Book three, The System of the World[11]: Book three (that is, the system of the world is a physical system).[7]

Newton's approach, using dynamical systems continues to this day.[8] In brief, Newton's equations (a system of equations) have methods for their solution.

Feedback control systems

System output can be controlled with feedback.

By 1824 the Carnot cycle presented an engineering challenge, which was how to maintain the operating temperatures of the hot and cold working fluids of the physical plant.[12] In 1868 James Clerk Maxwell presented a framework for, and a limited solution to the problem of controlling the rotational speed of a physical plant.[13] Maxwell's solution echoed James Watt's (1784) centrifugal moderator (denoted as element Q) for maintaining (but not enforcing) the constant speed of a physical plant (that is, Q represents a moderator, but not a governor, by Maxwell's definition).[14][a]

Maxwell's approach, which linearized the equations of motion of the system, produced a tractable method of solution.[14]: 428–429 Norbert Wiener identified this approach as an influence on his studies of cybernetics[b] during World War II[14] and Wiener even proposed treating some subsystems under investigation as black boxes.[18]: 242 Methods for solutions of the systems of equations then become the subject of study, as in feedback control systems, in stability theory, in constraint satisfaction problems, the unification algorithm, type inference, and so forth.

Applications

"So, how do we change the structure of systems to produce more of what we want and less of that which is undesirable? ... MIT’s Jay Forrester likes to say that the average manager can ... guess with great accuracy where to look for leverage points—places in the system where a small change could lead to a large shift in behavior".[19]: 146 Donella Meadows, (2008) Thinking In Systems: A Primer p.145 [c]

Characteristics

System boundary in context System input and output allows exchange of energy and information across boundary.

Systems far from equilibrium

Living systems are resilient,[24] and are far from equilibrium.[19]: Ch.3 [40] Homeostasis is the analog to equilibrium, for a living system; the concept was described in 1849, and the term was coined in 1926.[41][42]

Resilient systems are self-organizing;[24][d][19]: Ch.3 [43]

The scope of functional controls is hierarchical, in a resilient system.[24][19]: Ch.3

Frameworks and methodologies

Frameworks and methodologies for systems thinking include:

See also

Notes

  • A solution to the equations for a dynamical system can be afflicted by instability or oscillation.[15]: 7:33 The Governor: A corrective action against error can solve the dynamical equation by integrating the error.[15]: 29:44 [16]
  • "cybernetics: see system science.";[17]: 135 "system science: —the systematized knowledge of systems"[17]: 583
  • Donella Meadows, Thinking In Systems: A Primer[19][20] Overview, in video clips: Chapter 1[21] Chapter 2, part 1[22] Chapter 2, part 2[23] Chapter 3[24] Chapter 4[25] Chapter 5[26] Chapter 6[27] Chapter 7[28]
  1. Abstract: "An inevitable prerequisite for this book, as implied by its title, is a presupposition that systems science is a legitimate field of scientific inquiry. It is self-evident that I, as the author of this book, consider this presupposition valid. Otherwise, clearly, I would not conceive of writing the book in the first place". —George J. Klir, "What Is Systems Science?" from Facets of Systems Science (1991)

References

  1. Werner Ulrich (originally 1987) A Brief Introduction to Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH)

Sources

Systems science

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Systems_thinking

Subcategories``ёёё]]]

`0-9

`A

`B

`C

`D

`E

`F

► Futurology (18 C, 113 P)  `Q

► Quality management (4 C, 56 P)

`G

`H

`I

`J`K`L

`M

`N

`O

`P

`Q

`R

`S

`T

► Technology assessment (3 C, 24 P)

► Theory of constraints (16 P)

`U`V`W

`X`Y`Z

Index

```[[[ёёё

Systems thinking is always value-full

Systems thinking

`A

` The Arlington Institute

`B

` Béla H. Bánáthy

Battle command knowledge system

Business continuity planning

`C

` Club of Budapest

Club of Rome

Cognitive acceleration

Complexity, Systems Thinking and Practice

Ted Coombs

`D

` Delphi method

Digital strategy

`E

` Eco-industrial development

Educational entertainment

Energy Research Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences

`F

` Friday Night at the ER

Future history

Future Map

Future Search

Futures studies

Futures techniques

Futuribles International

Futurist

`G

` Global Alliance for Peace and Prosperity

`H

` Ray Hammond

Arthur Harkins

Holonic map

`I

` Interdependence

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

`J

` Joint decision trap

`K

` Kaya identity

Kybernetes

`L

` Lateral thinking

Learning organization

M

` Draft:Management cockpit

`P

` The Project on Forward Engagement

`Q

` Quality function deployment

Quality storyboard

`R

` Edwin W. Rawlings

Real-time Delphi

`S

` Scenario analysis

Scenario planning

Sensemaking

Service innovation

Singularitarianism

Software quality

STELLA (programming language)

Strategic management

Structure follows strategy

`T

` Thinking outside the box

Thought leader

TLG index of thought leaders

`W

` Work systems

World Future Society

World Futures Studies Federation

Worst-case scenario

`Y

` Thomas Young (scientist)

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