How to Understand Systems | Hacker News Reader

How to Understand Systems

neilkakkar.com

121 pointsneilkakkar21 comments

I Have been learning about various systems theories over the last two years and it is a massive field.

Starting of with a general theory of systems all the way to the present. The practical use cases are immense. Complex adaptive systems is just one of the many perspectives.

Reading the post it seems the assumption is “the system” can be controlled with the “requisite variety”. This is very much a hard systems stance. Useful when people are not involved, and to keep variables within an acceptable range.

The soft systems perspective is very different, rather than viewing the system as out there in the world it begins with the assumption that the system is actually a construction in our heads.

With different people operating from different mental models of the system. Differences and tensions stem from this.

Rather than being a negative this diversity is actually a positive as one can see a More holistic picture of “the system”, the tensions between perspectives on the system are opportunities for creativity and innovation.

Put another way. In the soft systems view, the system is actually the process of inquiry. The inquiry process defines the system in our minds. Thus, it is a process of learning that is recursive.

Care to share a reading list ? I only have von bertalanffy GST primer.

If you can only read one book, get Sterman's Business Dynamics.

The original hardback is out of print and so new ones are hideously expensive, but there are affordable second-hand copies and cheap "international" editions have popped up lately.

It would depend in what scenario you wanted to apply the concepts. I find that the best ROT (return on time) can be had by reading research papers. You need to have an understanding of the terminology or be prepared to slog through it. There are some books that have very useful information.

Below are some of the resources i have been using/used:

A brilliant introduction to systems thinking by John Sterman who is a legend in the field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnTwZVviXyY

Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows is a classic and a great introduction to some of the concepts.

https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Growth-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/19...

My review:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2231577740

Books focused on Application of the theory, with various approaches to systems thinking that can be applied to solve challenges. There is some overlap between the two books below as they both have a catalogue of methods. They are categorized differently. I would read the introductory chapters of both of these and then review the chapter layout and see which of the two i prefer.

Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers by Michael C. Jackson

https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Thinking-Creative-Holism-Mana...

And

Systems Concepts In Action by Bob Williams and Richard Hummelbrunner

https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Concepts-Action-Practitioners...

Research Papers/Book Extracts:

A Definition of Systems Thinking: A Systems Approach by Ross D. Arnold, Jon P. Wade

Soft systems methodology: a thirty year retrospective by Peter Checkland

Guidelines for Drawing Causal Loop Diagrams By: Daniel H. Kim The Systems Thinker, Vol 3, No 1, pp5-6 (Feb 1992)

More at: https://thesystemsthinker.com/

A brief guide to interactive planning and idealized design by Russel Ackoff

Application of soft systems methodology to the real world process of teaching and learning by Nandish V. Patel

An Application of Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology to the Development of a Military Information Operations Capability for the Australian Defence Force by R. J. Staker

Defining innovation: Using soft systems methodology to approach the complexity of innovation in educational technology by Glenda Cox

The viable system model: A briefing about organisational structure by Raul Espejo

Complex Adaptive Systems by JASON BROWNLEE

Sustainability, complexity and learning: insights from complex systems approaches by A. Espinosa, T. Porter

Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model An Interpretation By Trevor Hilder

Principles of the self-organizing system by W. Ross Ashby

Guidance on applying the viable system model by Sandra Hildbrand Shamim Bodhanya

Embracing Human Experience in Applied Systems-Thinking by José-Rodrigo Córdoba-Pachón

The Need for a Systemic Approach to Change Management—A Case Study by Guangming Cao, Steve Clarke and Brian Lehaney

I have just included titles and authors, not direct download links to the PDF as unsure about copyrights. Some of my copies of the PDF are stamped with the date-time i downloaded. My email is in my profile if you want more.

What a fantastic list. Huge thanks!

probably the longest answer I ever got on HN too

most impressive

No worries, I can manage to find books, if I ever need one I'll ping you.

And about the application, I was mostly curious about social dynamics. For instance how to model society in order to find weak points (Donella Meadows talks about the idea IIRC) in order to restructure/migrate population lifestyles smooth and fast towards better ones (energy use, social tissue, health etc).

Thanks again

Have a look at Jay Forresters' paper. I quote it at the end of the article. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-98...

It's beautiful. The three principles are worth internalising.

Nice, a short piece.

Books on my "to read list":

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496-ismail-dhorat...

Thought as a system by David Bhom

An Introduction to General Systems Thinking by Gerald M. Weinberg

Gerald maintained a blog, mainly as a front for the books he wrote, for a year before he passed away: https://secretsofconsulting.blogspot.com

I like these posts better:

https://secretsofconsulting.blogspot.com/2018/07/some-advice...

https://secretsofconsulting.blogspot.com/2018/06/why-would-a...

https://secretsofconsulting.blogspot.com/2018/04/stumbles-fo...

He did show up once on news.yc: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=geraldmweinberg

Interesting! Yes, I've never considered a "soft system" view as you mention.

Thank you.

Pardon my ignorance, but the soft system approach sounds a lot like Psychology and Sociology(psychology applied to more than one person). How are they different?

Great insight. Soft systems approach understands that all social systems fundamentally contain people, who act within the system. In other words, meaning is created within ourselves (psychology), and within a social context(sociology). SSM is an approach to understanding the various internal representations or mental models (psychology), and gain shared understanding (sociology)

> With different people operating from different mental models of the system.

But doesn't this take us full circle. If we start admitting that everyone has a different subjective model, and if we want to deal with this fact, then we have a whole population of subjective models "out there" in the world being part of "the system".

I've always thought complex systems explained a lot of the world (ironically, how little we know!) and I've found it to be a great mental model for understanding the world.

Some of my thoughts are here: https://alexpetralia.github.io/2018/05/28/NL-2018-05-28.html

Great straight forward writing that still sparks interest!

Every once in a while I find a site like yours that has conveniently aggregated a ton of stray thoughts and expands my world a little bit. Just wanted to take a moment to say thanks for doing this

Thank you for the kind words! :)

Systems thinking is better used as an oblique strategy to drive inspiration than as a formal discipline. Often the conclusions rest on assumptions & axioms that even practicing statisticians would feel queasy about.

This is something I struggled with a lot. Internal me would scream, show me the numbers!!. But when I go into mathematical modelling, too many assumptions make the model very.. basic. (Like you say)

However, if you aren't trying to control the system, but merely influence it - this helps figure out the leverage points, and what will happen with perturbations on said leverage points.

As far as understanding a system goes, that is good enough to use it to your advantage.

A formal discipline gets detached from reality (mathematical modelling). This I think rests somewhere in the middle.

Or, atleast, that's what I've come to see.

Could you give some examples?

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