What is systems thinking
Systems thinking according to Derek Cabrera — a Cornell University professor specializing in systems thinking — is the ability to find new ways of thinking to yield better solutions, innovations, and results. I guess you have heard of the famous saying
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” — Albert Einstein.
The four elements of systems thinking are: distinguish ideas from other ideas (distinctions), organize ideas into systems, relate ideas to one another, and look at ideas from many perspectives. Practice applying these four simple steps to anything you are thinking about, whether it is a problem you need to solve, an invention or innovation you are trying to create, or a system you are trying to understand.
System thinking teaches us how we react to events by Seeing underlying structures which allows us to better understand systems and design them to bring about desired outcomes. For instance, you have a grocery store that people no longer patronize as often as they used to, looking beyond the surface you may find the reason for the low patronage is that people now prefare to shop online for their groceries and have them delivered to their doorstep. Having this understanding will enable you produce innovative ideas like creating an online shop and delivery services which could get you more customers if properly executed.
Systems thinking encourages us to check our mental models against reality constantly. The top three things system thinkers are aware of are; mental models, seek out feedback on how you are doing and evolve your mental models to better fit reality. you do not want to get in a loop where you are not using feedback to evolve our mental models. Mental models are not merely made up of information but are also made up of how we structure, organize, or encode information to build meaning for ourselves. So, it is easy to transfer information (data) but might have no meaning to others because they must build it for themselves.
DSRP (Distinction, System, Relationship, Perspective) provides a simple set of rules for how to do systems thinking. It stands for: making distinction between and among ideas, organizing ideas into parts or whole systems, recognizing relationship among ideas, and taking unique perspective on ideas to understand them more deeply. With DSRP model you can look at anything from any point of view, for example a product manager who understand the DSRP rules and how to apply it will have the ability to be able to see a product from the customers point of view, engineering teams' point of view and sales team point of view and produce a product that satisfies all three parties involved.
Systems thinking can be helpful in creating algorithms to solve coding problems, as it can help us think systematically about how to break down the problem into smaller problems, use visual aids in visualizing the problem, which can be done with simple pen and paper or software tools to help better understand the problem before writing a line of code.
Systems thinking if applied correctly in our everyday life can help prevent repeated mistakes and create better predictions and outcomes. How are you applying these methods in your everyday life? Please do not hesitate to share in the comment section. And i endulge you to watch Derek's full video tutorial on LinkedIn Learning for more insights.
References
Derek Cabrera (2019, June, 13) System Thninking: Making sense of a complex world. [online video] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/systems-thinking/making-sense-of-a-complex-world?u=71337938 [Accessed 3/23/2021]
Managementhelp. (n.a). What is System Thinking. Retrieved from https://managementhelp.org/misc/defn-systemsthinking.pdf
Comments
Post a Comment