Topic · 16 notes

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking helps you see why problems persist and where an intervention will actually work. The pages draw on Tarasenko (who builds on Ackoff), Rakitov and colleagues, and Senge.

problem solving

Applied Systems Analysis in 12 Stages

Tarasenko's 12-stage method for messy organizational problems, building on Ackoff: from recording the complaint to implementing an improvement.

5 min read

modelling

Twelve Properties of Systems

The 12 properties every system has, after Tarasenko and Ackoff, used as a checklist for modelling a business as black box, composition and structure.

4 min read

modelling

Modelling and Management

How models work, what makes one adequate, and which of seven types of control fits what blocks your goal. After Tarasenko, building on Ackoff.

4 min read

problem solving

Problems and Improving Interventions

A problem is someone's dissatisfaction, not a fact. Ackoff's four ways to treat it, absolve, resolve, solve, dissolve, as retold by Tarasenko.

4 min read

change management

Implementing Interventions: Organizational Pathologies and Ethics

Turning a chosen change into reality: resource planning, why people join in, individual, group and organizational barriers, and the analyst's ethics.

4 min read

goals

Identifying Goals and Defining Criteria

Why stated goals differ from real ones, how idealized redesign reveals them, and how to turn goals into criteria and constraints. After Tarasenko and Ackoff.

4 min read

creativity

Methods for Generating Alternatives

A practical catalog of idea-generation methods beyond brainstorming, from brainwriting and morphological analysis to synectics and dialectical debate.

4 min read

metrics

Measurement Scales

Nominal, ordinal, interval, cyclic, ratio and absolute scales: which calculations each allows, and how to avoid meaningless averages in metrics.

3 min read

decision making

Choice Theory and Voting Paradoxes

How to choose with one or many criteria, why Pareto sets beat weighted scores, and the voting paradoxes that make group decisions tricky.

5 min read

goals

Goal Trees

Rakitov's rule: start every analytical study with a goal tree in three planes (management, analyst, external actors) and separate the object from the focus.

4 min read

decision making

Management Archetypes and Cognitive Types

How organizations move from precedent-based rules of thumb (archetypes) to explicit decision rules (cognitypes), plus latent information and choosing tools.

4 min read

stakeholders

Hierarchical and Evolving Systems

Map who really holds power at each level of an organization, and watch a few order parameters to anticipate sudden shifts. After Rakitov et al.

4 min read

decision making

Strategic Sessions and Situation Rooms

Types of strategic meetings, the 'space of trust', and how a situation room supports group decisions. After Rakitov et al., scaled for any organization.

4 min read

feedback loops

The Language of Systems Thinking: Feedback and Delays

Senge's vocabulary for system behavior: reinforcing and balancing feedback, delays, and dynamic complexity, with steps for drawing a causal loop diagram.

4 min read

system archetypes

System Archetypes and Leverage

Senge's recurring patterns Limits to Growth and Shifting the Burden: how to recognize them, tell their story, and find the point of leverage.

4 min read

problem solving

The Laws of the Fifth Discipline

Senge's eleven rules of thumb on why fixes backfire, paraphrased as review questions to test any proposed solution before you commit to it.

4 min read

Main sources for this section#

F. P. Tarasenko. Applied Systems Analysis (in Russian). KnoRus, 2010.
R. L. Ackoff (ideas as presented by Tarasenko).
A. I. Rakitov et al. Systems Analysis and Analytical Research (in Russian). Moscow, 2009.
P. Senge. The Fifth Discipline. Doubleday, 1990.