Systems Theory

IT IS 6342
Thomas Kitrick PhD
Fall 2009

General Systems Theory

A Way to Make Money

Recently we discussed Leadership and
Grit
I attempted to make the argument that
these skills when tied to technical skills can
increase your earning power.
Today I am going to try to make the
argument that Systems Thinking can be
leveraged to determine what work to put
into your final activity definition and as a by
product assist in critical thinking..

Why?
The ability to make decisions is
foundational to leadership and project
management as well.
Tonight I am going to appeal to you
intellectually that the ability to connect
the dots carries with it a premium in
terms of market value.

General Systems Theory

What is a System?

a system is composed of parts

all the parts of a system must be related (directly or indirectly), else
there are really two or more distinct systems
a system is encapsulated (has a boundary)
the boundary of a system is a decision made by an observer, or a group
of observers
a system can be nested inside another system
a system can overlap with another system
a system is bounded in time, but may be intermittently operational
a system is bounded in space, though the parts are not necessarily colocated
a system receives input from, and sends output into, the wider
environment
a system consists of processes that transform inputs into outputs
a system is autonomous in fulfilling its purpose (a car is not a system. A
car with a driver is a system)

What is Systems Thinking?

Systems Thinkers View
a system as a dynamic and complex whole, interacting as a structured
functional unit circuit
energy, material and information flowing among the different elements that
compose a system (see open system)
a system as a community situated within an environment
energy, material and information flowing from and to the surrounding
environment via semi-permeable membranes or boundaries that may
include negotiable limits
systems composed of entities seeking equilibrium but can exhibit
patterns, cycling, oscillation, randomness or chaos (see chaos theory), or
exponential behavior (see Exponential Function)

Einstein Inspired It
Up until the 1940s
biology, sociology
chemistry, philosophy,
physics were
generally viewed as
discreet disciplines.
In the early 1940s
began to see overlap
in terms of rules and
ways that the discreet
sciences could be
applied.

But Couldnt Leverage it Fully

Einsteins early work was
discreet in nature.
General Relativity Theory.
The last 25 years in his career
was spent working on the
General Unification Theory,
which he was never able to
solve.
This attempted to combine
time, space and gravity in one
theory with rules that could be
used to understand them.
Physicists came closer to a
unification theory with
Quantum Mechanics, which
began and continued after
Einstein's death.

Recently a court case in

Germany allows people to take
their drivers license photo in
tribute to this famous photo of
Einstein.

The Basic Thinkers in

Systems Theory

Fundamental Systems Thinkers

The goal over the next 15 minutes is to give
you an overview of some basic systems
theoreticians
Many of their ideas are evident in IT design
today but are more elemental in critical
thinking
Our goal in our work session today is to revisit
our Activity Definition in light of these ideas
and overall role of Systems Training.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy

von Bertalanffy reacting against
reductionism and attempting to revive
the unity of science.
He emphasized that real systems are
open to, and interact with, their
environments, and that they can
acquire qualitatively new properties
through emergence, resulting in
continual evolution.
Systems are not really built rather
they are designed based on the
environment and evolve based on their
use.
Crowd Sourcing

General Systems
Theory
Ludwig von
Bertalanffy

W. Ross Ashby
He leveraged such fundamental
ideas as homeostasis,, the principle
of self organization (primarily from
biology and sociology) and leveraged
them against the creation of adaptive
systems.
He proposed these insights in the
1940's and 1950's, long before the
presently popular complex adaptive
systems approach arrived at very
similar conclusions.
Robotics

Design for a Brain: The Origin of

Adaptive Behavior
W. Ross Ashby

Norbert Wiener
Feedback loops are the
essential component of
adaptive systems in that they
change based on end user
interaction.
The whole world -- even the
universe -- could be seen as
one big feedback system
subject to the relentless
advance of entropy.
Wiener asserted that a
machine that changes its
responses based on
feedback is a machine that
learns.
Google

Cybernetics: or
Control and
Communications in
the Animal and
Machine
Norbert Wiener

Herbert Simon
It's an idea at the basis of "bounded
rationality" -- the theory that won him
the Nobel Prize in economics in 1978.
Simon argued that inevitable limits on
knowledge and analytical ability force
people to choose the first option that
"satisfices" or is good enough for them,
whether they are buying a loaf or bread
or choosing a spouse.
The entire premise of software
development is based on economics,
we have choices to make in the world
and the reason we make choices is
based on the way we process
information.
Windows

The Science of the

Artificial
Herbert Simon

The Learning Organization

Systems Thinking
Personal Mastery
Flexible Mental Models
A Shared Vision
Team Learning

Action Steps
Using Systems Thinking can help you right now in
your project. How?
Each of the sections in your document interacts with each
other section, forcing you to think with a systems approach.
Accept this and begin to see the work as non-sequential and
overlapping.
You will have a better project.

Apply some of the basic principles highlighted in this

presentation to doing the work you have to do,
project design, feedback loops, homeostasis.
The use of systems thinking in your final document
might be helpful during the final exam.