Systems Thinking : An Overview

“Systems thinking is a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems."

-- Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

This discipline helps us to see how to change systems more effectively, and to act more in tune with the natural processes of the natural and economic world.

A system is a group of things that are interconnected and shows its own behavior pattern over time. In a way it has a mind of its own. When outside forces act on a system, it reacts in a way that is consistent to its character. If the same outside forces were to act on a different system, there would likely be a different outcome. The other important characteristic about systems apart from its parts & interconnections is a primary purpose for which these parts have come together. If you take away one part from the system and it is still able to fulfill the primary purpose, then this part was not required in the system in the first place.

Systems are everywhere and schools, organizations, human body, the atmosphere are all examples of systems. Systems thrive on feedback and use it to maintain balance in the system. The iceberg of systemic structures has Events at the top and this is what meets the eye, followed by patterns below which exhibit behaviors according to the character of the underlying systemic structures.

Systems can be best understood with the help of loop structures.

We can start anywhere in the loop and tell the story accordingly. As the demand increases, it puts pressure on the team to increase production of the product (positive relationship), the increased pressure on production results in drop in the quality of the output(negative or reverse relationship). This drop in quality has a similar effect on demand which decreases as well (positive relationship). The two parallel lines show the time gap between the two stages. In other words, a delay between dropping the quality and the resultant dip in market demand.

At times, we face a Reinforcing loop which depicts the compounding effect or in other words the snowball effect which generate exponential growth or collapse of the impacted parts.

This is an example of a negative spiral wherein the a fuller agenda scatters the team's focus which reduces the sharing of understanding within the team, resulting in team superficially solving problems. This in turn increases the load on the team and so on. The "R" in the center refers to the reinforcing nature of the loop.

Another important type is a "Balanced loop". In this loop, the Waiting Time increases as the foot fall increases and results in patient dissatisfaction leading to lesser footfalls. Eventually the loop balances to a level of acceptable waiting time and comes to a sort of a homeostasis. The "B" in the center signifies the balance maintained.

The actual systems are built on the foundation blocks mentioned above.This seemingly mathematical way of looking at the relationships is the only way to visualize a complex system. A system from real life is very complex and for example may involve IT systems, clients, market forces, IT & Ops teams, business and management intertwined in a complex web of relationships. Systems way of thinking gives a new pair of eyes to the teams to manage the complex relationships, predict problems and remove constraints.

Therefore, in this ever so interconnected world, it is an imperative to think in systems.

(Credit - This post is inspired by my favorite book "The fifth Discipline" by Peter Senge)