Systems thinking is an approach where a (part of an) organisation or project is seen in terms of variables that influence each other. Systems thinking focuses on the interdependence of parts instead of linear cause-effect relations. It is about seeing the whole and about dynamics and change, with feedback playing an essential role.

Systems thinking helps to make explicit the mental models of different stakeholders and to see not-so-obvious effects and self-reinforcing, possibly destructive loops.

Pascal Van Cauwenberghe has written an introduction called Bob the project manager thinks about systems (PDF, 36k). A more extensive introduction is What is systems thinking?.

Example questions for which systems thinking can help are:

• Why is writing unit tests so difficult, even though you know it has many advantages in the longer term?
• Why do managers let programmers work overtime, even though it is well known that overtime strongly decreases both quality and productivity?
• Your customer seems to have difficulty to see progress in a project and feels he/she has little influence on the whole. How can you involve this customer better?
• Adding people to a running project can have positive but also negative effects. What are the underlying dynamics and how can you use these to increase the speed of a software development project?
• Striving for high "internal" software quality is often seen as something that costs time and doesn't have a direct benefit. What are the effects of the internal quality on the stability of a software project as a whole?

I offer workshops and courses on systems thinking through my company Piecemeal Growth.

Links

• SystemsThinking.net
• Systems Thinking Workshop at the XP2004 conference
• OT 2003 Workshops - Systems Thinking For Coaches en Change architecting
• Survey of intervention points - Places to Intervene in a System
• Dancing with Systems
• An interview with Chris Argyris (PDF) in strategy+business Magazine
• Susan M. Heathfield, Make Learning Matter: Become a Learning Organization
• Society for Organizational Learning / SoL Netherlands
• Dale Emery, Managing Yourself Through Change

Literature

• Gerald M. Weinberg, Quality Software Management volume 1: Systems Thinking, Dorset House 1992
• Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Currency/Doubleday 1992
• Chris Argyris, Donald A. Schön, Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method, and Practice, Addison-Wesley 1995
• Arie de Geus, The Living Company, Longview 1997
• Kees van der Heijden, Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation, John Wiley & Sons 1996
• Linda Booth Sweeney, Dennis Meadows, The Systems Thinking Playbook, Inst. for Policy & Social Science 2001