Brief, Very Very Brief Intro to Systems Thinking

Learning Lunch

Goal of this slide deck

• Intro on Systems Thinking

• Some examples and such

• Resources for diving deeper

Brief Intro

Systems thinking is fundamentally different from traditional forms of analysis.

Take these three parts

Traditionally, we might narrow in one part at a time.

If I change Part #1 then that will cause X to happen.

But in Systems Thinking, you look at entire system, and the interactions between them.

If I change Part #1 how does that influence Part #2?

If Part #2 is influenced then how does that influence Part #3?

So on and so forth.

Each part of the system becomes both cause and effect.

How does one actor in the system influence others?

And in what ways?

Concrete Example (Reinforcing Process)

As sales goes, so does # of customers

As # of customers goes, so does word-of-

mouth

As word of mouth goes, so does

sales

Concrete Example (Balancing Growth)

As relaxation exercises goes, our stress level

goes in the opposite way

As stress level goes, so does our stress

level gap.

There’s a decision point, our acceptable stress level informs

us about using relaxation exercises.

Concrete Example (Shifting the Burden)

There’s a problem symptom ->

The more people we have on the bench the more likely we are to engage in a

symptomatic solution.

Engaging in symptomatic

solutions lessens our problem

symptom.

Engaging in symptomatic

solutions increases the self-imposed limit we put on ourselves for

working towards fundamental

solutions.

By limiting our availability to work

towards the fundamental solution we decrease our chances of reaching the fundamental solution.

Engaging in a fundamental solution

has a longer delay

As fundamental solutions go, the

problem symptom does the opposite.

Ways of thinking

A Visual Language

A pattern library

are occurrences we encounter daily

are accumulated “memories” of events over time

are ways in which the parts of the system are organized

Structure Influences Behavior

Resources & Tooling

kumu.io

• Web-app for visualization complex information and relationships

• Like github but for data visualizations

• Opensource projects are free!

thesystemsthinker.com

• Site with lots of good content and information around Systems Thinking

The Fifth Discipline

• Great book.

• First half, fantastic.

• Second half, half fantastic.

• Back quarter, quarter fantastic.