A system is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together. In the software world a system might be a web site or a framework of interconnected components that work together.
To understand a system it is common to take an analytic approach where you decompose the system and gain understanding by understanding its parts.
An organization is typically split in to functional units such as sales, marketing and product development.
A web site might consist of a database, a front end layer and maybe integration with external services like Facebook.
By understanding the components of a system you can answer “how”-questions. For an organization you can answer questions like how does the organisation approach the customers, and how does the organization develop its products? In software you can answer questions like “how is the front-end talking to the database” and “how does the system integrate with the external service?”
By solely taking an analytic approach to a system you are bound to run into trouble. To understand a system you need to look at how the components of the system is interacting, and also how the system interacts with the larger system which it is a part of. A system is always a component in a larger system. Looking at the synergies that form a system is called synergetic thinking.
By taking a synergetic approach, you can answer “why”-questions. These are the more important questions.
In organization you can answer questions like “Why is the sales team only approaching customers thru cold calling?” and “Why do we have unhappy customers?”. You can answer these very important questions by looking at the system in which the organizations operates. The larger system consists of its customers, its competitors, and the legal system and so on.
For software products it’s the same. Why does Amazon feature the Kindle on the front page? Why does the Kindle ad take half of the valuable real estate on the front page? You can’t answer this question by looking at the components of the web site. You need to look at the larger system and see how the web site fits in this system.
Synergetic thinking is one of the corner stones in systems thinking. Toyota pioneered this thinking early on and applied it to the Toyota production system. As time went by they outperformed their competitors by working continuously with the system, ensuring that its components worked seamlessly together. This work was not limited to the Toyota system, but also the system as a component in a larger system. Toyota actively engaged their suppliers and dealerships to ensure synergies. Working this way is not easy. It requires a continuous focus.
When it comes to software we can see analogies of too much analytic thinking when applying the single responsibility principle. By focusing on the single responsibilities of the system we often lose the algorithm of the system. By the “algorithm” I mean the way the components work together to solve the problem. James O. Coplien and Trygve Reenskaug try to remedy this problem by introducing the concept of DCI (Data, Context and Interaction) in which the interaction between the parts is an explicit concept.
Organizations as systems and software as systems are different beast on different levels, but there similarities, as I’ve shown. I find this intriguing.
In large organizations an analytic approach is often seen. The different functions of the organisation are run by different people, each trying to optimize their part of the organisation. One of the corner stones of systems thinking is the claim that by optimising each part, you are not optimising the whole. There are numerous examples of this. Russel Ackoff likes to use the analogy of cars. Take the best car parts from all car manufactures and put them together to form the ultimate car. It will not work. They don’t work together. It’s not only the components of the car, but how they work together that matters most. The same goes for organizations.
Getting the parts of a organizations to work seamlessly together to create an optimal whole is something that few organizations explicitly work on. This is because analytic thinking dominates. It dominates the education system and it dominates organizations.
You might wonder if most organizations are working on 20% of their true capacity. Some say they do.
Thanks for listening as I organize my thoughts.
Later.
