Thinking About Systems Thinking
Dr Mike YearworthReader in Systems, Faculty of Engineering
28th June 2010
Kuhn vs Popper – 31st July 1965• Both Kuhn and Popper embody pluralist and universal attitudes to scientific enquiry…“For Kuhn, a science is always dominated by one paradigm that its members pursue religiously until it runs up against the limits of its puzzle-solving capabilities. Pluralism then emerges in the form of increasingly specialised domains of inquiry, each dominated by its own paradigm…for Popper pluralism is, at least ideally, intrinsic to the day-to-day conduct of scientific inquiry, as scientists are encouraged to proliferate alternative hypotheses that then face stiff cross-examination by standards that command universal assent….…on the broadest philosophical canvas… Kuhn and Popper represent two radically different ways of specifying the ends of inquiry: What drives our understanding of reality? Where is the truth to be found? Kuhn would have us look to the dominant paradigms, the beliefs and actions of those who have come to be certified as knowers. It is ultimately a backward looking standard, one based on entitlement through survival. For his part, Popper proposed a more forward-looking perspective based on what enables us to think that our knowledge and actions are always subject to improvement.
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Kuhn vs Popper – 31st July 1965• However, in the absence of standards that command universal assent…
“…As science has acquired more secular power, it has tended towards the self-perpetuation of existing regimes, as dominant research programmes are pursued by default, a situation that the sociologist Robert Merton has dignified as the ‘principle of cumulative advantage’… all scientists working in the same paradigm are equal, but some are more equal than others. These are the ‘peers’ whose opinion always seems to matter in the ‘peer review process’ used to fund and evaluate scientific research…the acculturation of novices into a scientific paradigm, since thereafter the novice’s mind is set to plough the deep but narrow furrow laid down by her senior colleagues as normal science”
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Historical development…
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Checkland – 1972 to 1999• “Failure” of Systems Engineering• Action Research• Weltanschauung• The process of enquiry as systemic;
learning systems• “Engineers (and Technologists) are
impatient with theorizing…little inclined to analyze the way…”
• Hierarchy/Emergence and Communication/Control – and ‘ducked’ the reductionism/holism argument
• Full-blown interpretivist stance
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Nature of Social Science
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Nominalism
Anti-Positivism
Voluntarism
Ideographic
Nominalism
Anti-Positivism
Voluntarism
Ideographic
Realism
Positivism
Deterministic
Nomothetic
Realism
Positivism
Deterministic
Nomothetic
Ontology
Epistemology
Human Nature
Methodology
strands of theory ObjectivismSubjectivism
Nature of Social Order
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Stability
Integration
FunctionalCoordination
Consensus
Stability
Integration
FunctionalCoordination
Consensus
Change
Conflict
Disintegration
Coercion
Change
Conflict
Disintegration
Coercion
Dynamism
Order
Operating Logic
Social Positioning
strands of theorySociology
of RegulationSociology
of Radical Change
Burrell & Morgan – 1979
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Mike Jackson – 1984…
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• I think “Systems approaches…” provides us with the theory textbook we need…
Mike Jackson – 1984…
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• …and “Systems thinking…” is a useful handbook for practice
Re-Interpretation of the B&M framework…
• Jackson and Keys (1984) re-interpreted B&M by1. re-stating the dimension of social order in B&M,
quite usefully, as a dimension of the values/interests of the participants in the system by degree of alignment – from unity, through plural, to conflict. We could also think of this as degree of alignment of stakeholder needs
2. introduced a new dimension which classifies (or defines) complexity as a function of the degree of intentionality, or self-purpose, in the system
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Thus Jackson’s System of Systems Methodologies (SOSM)….
Increasing Divergence of Values Interests
Unitary PluralistCoercive/Conflictual
In
cre
as
ing
Co
mp
lex
ity
Sim
ple
Co
mp
lex
Hard SystemsThinking
System DynamicsOrg Cybernetics
Complexity Theory
Sof
t Sys
tem
s A
ppro
ache
s
EmancipatorySystems Thinking
PostmodernSystems Thinking
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FunctionalistFunctionalist InterpretivistInterpretivist
RSRS
RHRH
Jackson’s classifications of systems thinking into four major Fs; or Paradigms
1. Functionalistsystems seem to have a hard, easily identifiable existence independent of us as observers. Understand status quo leading to prediction and control
2. Interpretivesystem seems ‘softer’ and elude easy identification. Understand such systems by trying understand points of view and intentions of people who create them. Intentionality makes a profound difference, difficult to model, so acquire detailed information by getting involved, “getting inside it” but ultimately objectives are similar to the functionalist
3. Radical Structuralismsystems still seem to hard and and external to us as observers, however we can model and we don’t believe that we need to pay much heed to intentionality, however we are interested in conflict and power structures with a view to emancipation from existing structures.
4. Radical Humanismsystems are seen as the creative constructs of human beings, to understand them we need to understand their intentions. The way to learn about them is to involve ourselves in their activities and to understand what social arrangements constrain development
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Critical Systems Practice
1. Functionalist approaches
Hard (methodologies: OR, SA, SE; methods: UML, DEs, ABMs, probability, queuing theory…), SD (m&m), org. cybernetics (VSM m&m), complexity theory (method: DEs; methodology:???)
2. Interpretive approaches
Methodologies/Methods: Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing (SAST), Interactive Planning (IP), SSM, PERIMETA, Group Model Building (SD)
3. Radical Structuralism Emancipatory approaches
Methodologies/Methods: Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH), Team Syntegrity
4. Radical Humanism Postmodern approaches
Methodologies: surely not??? But see Participatory Appraisal of Needs and the development of Action (PANDA) – pragmatic pluralism
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A last word from Kuhn – 1962
• Are we experiencing the emergence of a new paradigm?• At a philosophical level, no• Within engineering, perhaps a very
guared yes (e.g. a transformation: civil engineering engineering for civil society)
• The answer will of course be decided in the normal Kuhnian way!
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The motion before us…
1. “It is believed that terminology employed within the discipline loosely referred to as ‘systems thinking’ is often ambiguous and inconsistent…”• Sometimes! And it depends on what you read. If (say) you
believe that system dynamics is system thinking (Forrester/Senge/Sterman at MIT) then this is not true.
2. “…and that this is hindering development of systems thinking as a respected academic discipline…”• Ambiguity/inconsistency when it does appear is a symptom with
more than one root cause. I suggest i) lack of coherent body of knowledge and core journals which allows weak/poor review, ii) existing discipline silos independently discovering/claiming systems thinking, and iii)…
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The motion before us…
3. “…It is felt that this problem stems from a fundamental problem with the philosophical basis of the discipline.”• Not that there is a fundamental problem with the philosophical
basis but that there exists disparate paradigms which can all underpin the methodologies that system thinking employs. Personally I am aligned with Jackson in using the B&M framework and taking a critical approach to methodology selection as a way of practising, but accept that I may be biased towards a realist ontology. Perhaps critical realism could provide a basis?
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But…“I want to briefly broach the topic of emergence. This is a 1M category of non-identity but is (a) specifically ontological while (b) falling within the generic Hagelianesque class of stratificational dialectics. In emergence, generally, new beings (entities, structures, totalities, concepts,) are generated out of pre-existing material from which they could have been neither induced nor deduced. There is a quantum leap, or nodal line, of (one feels like saying) the materialized imagination – or even, with Hegel, reason – akin to that occurring in the σ or τ transforms of the rudimentary epistemological dialectic of C1.9. This is matter as creative, as autopoietic….”
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Opportunities (lots!)• Executive Summary
• [3/5] There is a need to improve the standing, recognition and reputation of Systems Engineering in academia
• Key Axes of Development • [1/3] Improve the Academic
profile of Systems Engineering and Systems Thinking by setting out an agreed, intellectually rigorous foundation for the discipline
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References – Books
1. BURRELL, G. & MORGAN, G. (1979) Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis : elements of the sociology of corporate life, Ashgate, 1992.
2. CHECKLAND, P. (1999) Soft systems methodology : a 30-year retrospective ; and, Systems thinking, systems practice, Chichester, John Wiley.
3. FULLER, S. (2003) Kuhn vs Popper : the struggle for the soul of science, Thriplow, Icon.
4. JACKSON, M. C. (2003) Systems thinking : creative holism for managers, Chichester, John Wiley.
5. JACKSON, M. C. (2000) A Systems Approach to Management, New York, Kluwer.
6. KUHN, T. S. (1962) The structure of scientific revolutions, Chicago ; London, University of Chicago Press.
7. RAMAGE, M., SHIPP, K. (2009) Systems Thinkers, London, Springer.
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References – Journal Papers
• MINGERS, J. (2000) The contribution of critical realism as an underpinning philosophy for OR/MS and systems. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 51(11), pp. 1256-1270.
• JACKSON, M. C. & KEYS, P. (1984) Towards a System of Systems Methodologies. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 35(6), pp. 473-486.
• JACKSON, M. C. (2001) Critical systems thinking and practice. European Journal of Operational Research, 128(2), pp. 233-244.
• CHECKLAND, P. M., JENKINS, G.M. (1974) Learning by doing: systems education at Lancaster University. Journal of Systems Engineering, 4(1), pp. 40-51.
• BROWN, S. F. (2009) Naivety in Systems Engineering Research: are we putting the methodological cart before the philosophical horse? . 7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER 2009). Loughborough, UK.
• ULRICH, W (2005). A brief introduction to critical systems heuristics (CSH). ECOSENSUS project website, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 14 October 2005 http://projects.kmi.open.ac.uk/ecosensus/publications/ulrich_csh_intro.pdf
• LANE, D. C. (1999) Social theory and system dynamics practice. European Journal of Operational Research, 113(3), pp. 501-527.
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