I used systems thinking for most of my adult life. It was at the heart of the infrastructure and services I built, the organizations I participated in, a key tool to understand the world around me, and to identify the most leveraged way for me to make a positive impact on the world. When I was asked to shared how systems thinking would inform a Human Resources team, I realized I had never written down any thoughts about systems and had never thought about how to explain systems beyond the context of computing systems. This is my starting place.
Systems thinking is a holistic approach to analysis that focuses on the way that a system’s constituent parts (the elements) interrelate and how systems work over time and within the context of larger systems. Rather than isolating individual components, systems thinking emphasizes the interconnectedness of parts within a whole. Systems thinking enables people to address complex problems which have emergent behaviors which result from a number of simple feedback mechanisms. A systems description of systems thinking:
Figure 3 from A Definition of Systems Thinking: A Systems Approach Ross D. Arnold*, Jon P. Wade. Procedia Computer Science 44 (2015) 669 – 678. 2015 Conference on Systems Engineering Research
References
- Def of Systems Thinking – Arnold & Wade
- Introduction to Systems Thinking by Daniel Kim is a paper which provides a gentle introduction to systems thinking with a nice explanation of feedback mechanisms. There is a lot of other good materials at https://thesystemsthinker.com. Huge thank you to Pierre Omidyar for insuring these materials are publicly available.
- Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows. One of the leading lights in systems thinking. The appendix 2 has a nice list of systems archetypes with diagrams which capture their essence.
- An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson which is a slightly edited collection of blog posts from his website Irrational Exuberance. Will’s material is intended to help engineering leaders grow and develop.
- The Art of Systems Thinking by Joseph O’Conner and Ian McDermott.
- fs.blog’s systems thinking study guide
“Class” Materials
- Complex Problem Solving Through Systems Thinking MIT Executive Class
- Human-Centered Systems Thinking – IdeoU Class
- Understanding Systems Thinking – Micro Learning Web Class
HR / Leadership Focus
Related
- What are mental models? Here’s how to actually use them.
- Stop trusting your gut – decision making systems
- Tools for ideation and problem solving: Part 1 | Architectures | Dan Lockton
- Systems theory – Wikipedia
- Fifth Discipline: Practice of Learning Organizations by Peter Senge
- 3 research-backed principles that help you scale your engineering org – Work Life by Atlassian
- Dunbar’s Number: Maximum number of relationships people can keep in their mind with significant breakpoints at around 6, 35, and 150.
- Conway’s Law: Computer systems will copy the communication structures of an organization.
- Brooks’ Law: Adding manpower at the end of a project with make it take longer
- Structure Cybernetics
- Team Topologies
- Hints to System Designers and Operators – outdated. planning to write a replacement of this soonish
