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Systems thinking is the process of understanding how those things which may be regarded as systems influence one another within a complete entity, or larger system. 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 roots in the General
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----------------------------------------------------------------------- SYSTEMS Simple Complex Exceedingly complex ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Deterministic Window catch Electronic digital EMPTY computer -------------------------------------- Billiards Planetary system -------------------------------------- Machine-shop Automation lay-out ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Probabilistic Penny tossing Stockholding The economy --------------------------------------------------------- Jellyfish Conditioned The brain movement reflexed --------------------------------------------------------- Statistical Industrial THE COMPANY quality control profitability
FIGURE 4.1: Stafford Beer's classification of systems based on degrees of complexity and uncertainty. Source: Beer (1959, p. 18).[10]
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Level Characteristic unit Summary description (1) framework static systems (2) clockwork simple dynamic systems (3) thermostat control mechanisms and cybernetic systems (4) cell open systems, or self-maintaining structures (5) plant genetic/societal systems (6) animal mobile, teleological systems with self-awareness (7) human individual animal systems with self-consciousness (8) human society social systems with self-consciousness (9) transcendental idea ultimate, absolutes, and inescapeable knowledges
TABLE 3.1 Kenneth Boulding's hierarchy of systems (abstracted from Boulding 1956, pp. 89–94)
Some examples:
Systems science thinking is increasingly being used to tackle a wide variety of subjects in fields such as computing, engineering, epidemiology, information science, health, manufacture, management, sustainable development, and the environment. Professor Rajagopal, EGADE Business School, building on the work of Ferdinand Tönnies has suggested the application of systems thinking in developing marketing strategy from the perspectives of corporate business restructuring in the post-economic recession situations.[6]
As a result of such thinking, new insights may be gained into how the supermarket works, why it has problems, how it can be improved or how changes made to one component of the system may impact the other components.
A treatise on systems thinking ought to address many issues including:
The systems thinking approach incorporates several tenets:[5]
Systems science and the application of systems science thinking has been grouped into the following three categories based on the techniques or methodologies used to design, analyze, modify, or manage a system:
A holistic 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 (see Holon Philosophy) of other systems.
Systems science thinkers consider that:
Several ways to think of and define a system include:
Systems science thinking attempts to illustrate how small catalytic events that are separated by distance and time can be the cause of significant changes in silo effect. Systems thinking techniques may be used to study any kind of system — physical, biological, social, scientific, engineered, human, or conceptual.
In systems science, 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.[4] 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.
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 parts, outcomes or events, and thereby potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices[3] 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.
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