Systems Thinking

We cannot understand the nature of a system by analysis of its parts.

"To optimize the whole, we must suboptimize the parts." E. Deming

System dynamics is a method for studying the world around us. Unlike other scientists, who study the world by breaking it up into smaller and smaller pieces, system dynamicists look at things as a whole. Read more at: http://sysdyn.clexchange.org/road-maps/home.html

"The solutions to our greatest problems cannot be discovered at the same level of thinking at which they were created." AlbertEinstein

We know about Analysis this has been part of SoftwareDevelopment methodologies for many years. We are proficient in breaking up a problem into manageable parts. I also think we like being experts in our fields.

To achieve Synthesis requires a different level of thinking. More right brain thinking, creativity, imagination and vision. Put the analytical left brain on hold for a while. To do this, I believe we have to step out of our fields of expertise.

Our inexperience in this (or not being WillingToChange) could explain why entropy often lead us to XpCrashAndBurn and explains some of the DistributionStories.

SystemsThinking and PatternLanguages go hand in hand.

Absolutely. Both could learn from the other, but, especially, I think the Patterns movement could learn a lot from the systems community about how and why patterns work or don't work - SystemsThinking helps a lot in evaluating the forces, dealing with ambiguity and differing points of view.

Large number of links on SystemsThinking can be found at: http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/users/gossimit/links/bookmksd.htm

JerryWeinberg has written the seminal book on SystemsThinking in the context of SoftwareDevelopment.