The Weekly Probe No. 3

Welcome to The Weekly Probe: a list of all the interesting things I’ve consumed over the past week related to systems thinking. The content serves as supplemental material to help those wishing to be better systems thinking students. The information presented here are not solutions in and of themselves but help facilitate better tools when creating or extending systems.

IN ORDER TO SUCCEED IT IS NECESSARY TO KNOW HOW TO AVOID THE MOST LIKELY WAYS TO FAIL.

Systemantics

Don’t forget to check out my recent article:?Hurricane Katrina.

The article is a case study on loose systems. Sound systems need a balance between those setting the strategy and goals of the system and those out in the field carrying out their expertise towards the system’s purpose.

Explore Your Curiosity

LEVERAGE POINTS: PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM

Ms. Meadows was one of the most prominent thought leaders in the systems-thinking space. Her?book?is one of if not the best-selling book on systems thinking.

In this article, Meadows talks about interventions in systems and lists them from least to most effective.

1. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).
2. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks relative to their flows.
3. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks population age structures).
4. The lengths of delays relative to the rate of system change.
5. The strength of negative feedback loops relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against.
6. The gain around driving positive feedback loops.
7. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information).
8. The system’s rules (incentives, punishments, constraints).
9. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure.
10. The goals of the system.
11. The mindset or paradigm of which the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises.
12. The power to transcend paradigms.

She argues that we’re often hyper-focused on the parameters of systems rather than the goals. The system parameters seem most important because they usually directly affect us. Two examples are: who the president of the US is and the amount of taxes we pay. But these are small inputs into extensive and complex systems that bear little weight on the overall system.

VOLUME 2: APPENDIX F - PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS ON RELIABILITY OF SHUTTLE BY RICHARD FEYNMAN

Recently I’ve been interested in the Challenger disaster of 1986. Professor Richard Feynman was in charge of investigating why the tragedy occurred, and he thoroughly documented all of his findings. The link I provided is to one of his summary notes. The crux of the problem was that NASA was testing their shuttles so much while also launching them at too fast of intervals to be able to check all parts of the shuttle rigorously. In his notes, Professor Feynman recommended that NASA schedule fewer launches so that the engineers have more time to discover issues.

THE FUTURE IS NO MORE PREDICTABLE NOW THAN IT WAS IN THE PAST, BUT YOU CAN AT LEAST TAKE NOTE OF TRENDS.

-KYLE