Systems Thinking


the Way of Systems

http://minnesotafuturists.pbworks.com/f/D2025+April+09.ppt ... D2025 April 09.pdf

 

theWay is an effectiveness enhancement facility. theWay does not purport to provide answers. theWay provides access to fundamental principles, with supporting information, to develop understanding to support the development of strategies to address situations. Not just any strategies, but strategies which have a very high probability of working when applied. To employ theWay an understanding of Systems and Systems Thinking is essential, as well as how we formulate questions influences the answers we develop.

The overall structure or architecture of theWay is built on relationships between system archetypes. Simply begin at the center and work outward as the descriptions are appropriate to the situation you are considering.

 

 

 

 

  1. the Way of Systems
    1. The concept of a system''
    2. What is a system?
  2. Methods
    1. Applications
    2. References
    3. See also
    4. Bibliography
    5. External links

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to make an organization healthy or unhealthy.

 

Systems Thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, by viewing "problems" as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices [1] within a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation.

 

Systems thinking focuses on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect.

In science systems, it is argued that the only way to fully understand why a problem or element occurs and persists is to understand the parts in relation to the whole.[2] Standing in contrast to Descartes's scientific reductionism and philosophical analysis, it proposes to view systems in a holistic manner. Consistent with systems philosophy, systems thinking concerns an understanding of a system by examining the linkages and interactions between the elements that compose the entirety of the system.

 

Science systems thinking attempts to illustrate that events are separated by distance and time and that small catalytic events can cause large changes in complex systems. Acknowledging that an improvement in one area of a system can adversely affect another area of the system, it promotes organizational communication at all levels in order to avoid the silo effect. Systems thinking techniques may be used to study any kind of system — natural, scientific, engineered, human, or conceptual.

 

The concept of a system''

Science systems thinkers consider that:

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 holons of other systems.

 

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

The Systems approach rests on two tenets:

  1. "The Whole is more than the sum of the parts" — Aristotle
  2. The development ethic.

 

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.

 

Methods

The application of Systems thinking has been grouped into three categories based on the techniques used to tackle a system:

 

Applications

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

For example:

 

References

 

See also

 

Bibliography

 

External links

 

Software