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Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective action in complex contexts, [ 3 ] enabling systems change .
Thinking in Systems provides an introduction to systems thinking by Donella Meadows, the main author of the 1972 report The Limits to Growth, [1] and describes some of the ideas behind the analysis used in that report.
Critical systems thinking (CST) is a systems approach designed to aid decision-makers, and other stakeholders, improve complex problem situations that cross departmental and, often, organizational boundaries. CST sees systems thinking as essential to managing multidimensional 'messes' in which technical, economic, organizational, human ...
DSRP has been used to apply systems thinking to the fields of evaluation and program planning, including a National Science Foundation-funded initiative to evaluate of large-scale science, technology, engineering, and math education programs, [17] as well as evaluations of the complexity science education programs of the Santa Fe Institute.
A system archetype is a pattern of behavior of a system. Systems expressed by circles of causality have therefore similar structure. Identifying a system archetype and finding the leverage enables efficient changes in a system. The basic system archetypes and possible solutions of the problems are mentioned in the section Examples of system ...
Passive systems are structures and components that are being processed. For example, a computer program is passive when it is a file stored on the hardrive and active when it runs in memory. [4] The field is related to systems thinking, machine logic, and systems engineering.
Meadows started with a nine-point list of such places, and expanded it to a list of twelve leverage points with explanations and examples, for systems in general. She describes a system as being in a certain state, consisting of a stock and flow, with inflows (amounts entering the system) and outflows (amounts leaving the system). At a given ...
Systems thinking in design has a long history with origins in the design methods movement during the 1960s and 1970s, such as the idea of wicked problems developed by Horst Rittel. [ 9 ] The theories about complexity help the management of an entire system, and the suggested design approaches help the planning of different divergent elements.