Systems Analysis

[whyBish]

Just an article some of you may find interesting.
www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/places_intervene_system.html

[Occhidiangela]

Just an article some of you may find interesting.
www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/places_intervene_system.html
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whybish

Comments on the two leverage points that she considers the most powerful, and as I understand her article, the toughest to change decisively.

1. "The mindset out of which the system arises. What forms your organization’s culture? What does everyone know without saying? How does this generate the "goals, information flows, feedbacks, stocks, flows?""

Otherwise put: Common Cultural Assumptions and Norms. How is the world (organization) supposed to work?

0. "The power to transcend paradigms. We don’t realize the span of choices due to "systems" blindness. This blindness is both temporal (we don’t know the history of how we got here) and spatial (we don’t see the entire system). Overcoming these blind spots helps us recognize the choices we have in systems intervention."

Translation: Driving point 1 is point 0, since the power of an idea is potentially world changing. Why? It can change the focus on “how is the world supposed to work?” from which all else derives, particularly system rules.

My only other comment on her paper, which is very interesting, is her assumption that a single coherent rule set need apply to the human existence on the planet. Her off handed assertion of the necessity, from a system's analyst perspective, for the need of one world government misses the point of the purpose of the system's existence. A system that will serve the subjective needs of humans as they are, not humans as they might be ideally, needs to be an enabling tool for stewardship and continued progress (not necessarily growth au outrance, a position of hers I support). It does not need to be a directive mechanism, as such a mechanism serves the needs only of the very few.

Earth isn't an ant colony we are trying to wrap our arms around, it is the home planet of humans. Some chaos and uncertainty is healthy as an agency for change. The critical question (bounded by her points 1 and 0) is "what are the control limits, or the limits of variability" aka "wiggle room" that best fit the human being's continued thriving on planet Earth as reasonably free beings, rather than as servants to a very small ruling class. Her observation in re the GATT, G-7, NAFTA, WTO and other globalism initiatives, as a system designed by corporations for corporations, is one well made due to its character as a positive feedback system. In flying, the term used is dynamic instability.

No easy answers, in any case.

Occhi

[whyBish]

Occhi
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Yes, I was more interested in the generics of system leverage rather than the specific (political) instances she was (claiming) using for illustration.

I've seen it now applied in three different levels to software engineering alone:
- The running software system
- The (business) process that the software is part of
- The development process

It also put an interesting light on a couple of political policies that have been suggested over here

1) Increase the minimum wage (Actual objective, for low paid workers to earn more).
Effect of increasing minimum wage, decreases business competitiveness of those industries relying on low paid workers, means loss of jobs, means increase in no-paid ( :P ) workers
1alternative) Increase govt. transfer to low paid workers. Businesses stay competitive, and govt forced to find alternative programmes to cut, (or increase debt, or taxes)

2) Scotland is currently trying to promote itself to the world as a good place to work / invest. However 52% of Scottish GDP is from the public sector (in some regions up to 75%) which is not a good sign of a place that wants private entrepreneurialism...
2alternative) Rather than increasing the advertising budget, change the system.


Anyway, I don't like her point zero. I like to cling to the hope of an absolute truth and to have 'one hammer that fits all screws' ;) Paradoxes make my head hurt.

[Occhidiangela]

Anyway, I don't like her point zero.  I like to cling to the hope of an absolute truth and to have 'one hammer that fits all screws'  ;) Paradoxes make my head hurt.
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When it comes to matters human, her point zero has been proven to be true time and again.

Wish away, good Bishie, absolute truth is about as much use as absolute zero: it freezes things in one, inflexible condition. That isn't living . . . and living is the aim.

Occhi

[whyBish]

When it comes to matters human, her point zero has been proven to be true time and again. 

Wish away, good Bishie, absolute truth is about as much use as absolute zero: it freezes things in one, inflexible condition.  That isn't living . . . and living is the aim.

Occhi
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Hence the wink. I may not like it even if I accept it :P

[Olon97]

Just an article some of you may find interesting.
www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/places_intervene_system.html

Had a chance to meet Donella Meadows before she passed. She is one of the few individuals in the field of System Dynamics who managed to make the material accessible and interesting to the general public, and she had an enormous heart.

Glad her writings are still circulating around in different circles than the relatively small population of SD professionals, who have not had much demonstrable luck in reaching the "vast middle ground of people who are open-minded." Her untimely death was a great loss to the field.