There are many types of ‘thinking’ that one hears about these days: critical thinking, analytical thinking, design thinking, abstract thinking, and creative thinking to name a few. There is overlap between some of them, while some are quite different from each other. Holistic thinking and big-picture thinking are reasonably synonymous with Systems Thinking (ST). The guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) cites Peter Senge’s famous book ‘The Fifth Discipline’ to define ST as “a discipline for examining wholes, interrelationships, and patterns utilizing a specific set of tools and techniques.”. In this article, we wish to present ST as an important tool for SE. It is not our intent to provide any comprehensive introduction to ST - only to show how you may use it for SE purposes.
Since the word ‘system’ appears in ST, it should not be misunderstood that it is applicable only to the systems related to SE. To avoid such confusion, some are beginning to use the phrase ‘systemic thinking’ instead. ST is a way of thinking, and can be utilized while thinking about any ‘problem-situation’. ST is generic and universal. In fact, there is no ‘problem-situation’ that falls outside the scope of ST! Please note that ST is about ‘thinking’, not ‘doing’. But, ST will not just help you get started; it will continue to support you all along the way.
Step 1 of Problem Solving: Use Systems Thinking
Let’s consider this problem-situation: ‘you want to book a flight ticket for your trip to visit some family members over the weekend’. You will not do it randomly but will want to book the ‘best’ ticket. Ticket price, departure/arrival time, direct/connecting, baggage allowance, etc. are typical parameters that will be presented to you by most of the online flight ticket booking sites. Many may proceed to book the ticket based only on these parameters. However, there are other factors that are relevant as well: how to reach the airport; how long will that take; how much will that cost; what factors will affect travel time to airport; how does the travel time to airport vary during the day; how many bags will be carried and how big are they; if it is around meal-time when and where to eat; after arrival how to reach the final destination; and so on. Some of these factors may be insignificant or irrelevant in some situations. For example, for someone living very close to the airport, ‘how to reach the airport’ may not be a big concern. It need not be a critical decision parameter for them. But, take the case of KS (one of the co-authors of this article/blog) who lives 110 km from the nearest airport. He has to negotiate 3.5 hrs of travel through ghat roads (mountain roads) that are prone to traffic jams. Cab fare for airport drop is at Rs 3200 (in the year 2022). Buses are a cheaper option, but with limited availability. So - for KS, ‘how to reach the airport’ is a critical decision parameter. A person who dwells on all these additional factors shall always be better in arriving at ‘best’ ticket, and can be considered to be a good ‘systems thinker’ (We will talk about systems thinkers in a future article).
ST is the best way to get started with any problem you may encounter. It will help you understand the problem better. ST will lead you to think about various related aspects. But by doing so, you would in fact be expanding the problem and making it bigger than what you started with! Once you do a bit of expansion and exploration, you would then go back to addressing the original problem-situation with the additional confidence that your thorough understanding of the problem will lead you to a better solution.
As your understanding of the problem (or problem-situation) improves, you will also begin to think about potential solutions to your problem. Though you have not made any decision yet, thinking about potential solutions may reveal the need to revisit ST to discover new connections of the problem that now emerge along with potential solutions. In your current problem-situation for example, if you are considering requesting a friend to drop you at the airport, then you will have to think about their availability, and the time it will take for your friend to reach your house from theirs. But you may not have to worry about these factors if you plan on taking an Uber or Ola. Once we have understood the problem as thoroughly as possible, we can now move on to think about how to address it.
Which is the Best Solution Option?
Unlike our Math problems from school, many real-life problems that we encounter will usually have more than one answer or solution – there will never be only one correct answer. We would arrive at many potential solutions. How we would eventually select one from them, will be discussed in a future article. It is even possible that our early design decisions in a long-drawn, multi-staged design process might not even present all possible solutions to us!
Going back to our flight booking situation, ST first helped us expand the problem beyond just booking a flight ticket, by making us think about various related factors. Finding a solution considering this expanded problem is better than finding a solution just based on the original problem. When you then pick an option and actually book the flight ticket, you would have successfully addressed the problem-situation you started with. Note that ST did not book the flight ticket for you - it was you who did it! If you had booked your flight without first expanding the problem, it is possible that you might realize some missing factors close to the date of travel - perhaps the day before, as you are planning on how to reach the airport on time for your flight!
Let us step back for a moment, and consider a higher-level problem-situation: you want to ‘travel’ to visit some family members over the weekend. This problem opens up a number of transportation options, where one of them could be to travel by air! You will need to employ your systems thinking skills to consider various factors related to your travel problem, and to also come up with various options to travel! Depending on the specificities, the options could be a train, bus, car, or air. If a car, it could be taxicab or self-driven; if self-driven, it could be your own car or rental car. If travel by air comes out as the best option, then that becomes our new problem (that we have already talked about). On the other hand, the level of this problem-situation could be raised even further: you want to ‘meet’ some family members over the weekend. This problem could be addressed in a number of ways including making a video call, or both parties traveling to meet at a central location.
As you can see, ST will not only help you to understand a given problem better, but could make you consider revisiting and even revising the problem!
The SE Connection
In our previous article we had said, “ST can help understand the larger context within which the problem exists, and visualize the larger environment with which the potential solution would interact”. For example, a problem may be stated as some functionality needed by a class of users in society. People who express the problem may state the need in isolation. They may also visualise the potential solution being used in isolation. They may be focussed only on the end user. But ST needs to address the problem in the larger context - are there any legal issues involved; are there any regulations in place that may need to be addressed; when the end user is using the solution, could there be others who get affected adversely; when the end user is using the solution, are there factors that can alter the experience; what are impacts on the environment; and so on. The more we do ST, the better we understand the big picture and more suited shall be the solution we would eventually come up with. Doing this is all the more important when SE is involved. Remember - if we need SE, then it is understood that what we are creating is a System. This implies that the problem and the solution are complex and need to be decomposed. Complex problems and complex solutions have far more factors lurching in the dark to be dragged out, for each and every element of the system that would then add up. Thus ST is crucial to SE. In SE, ST manifests in the following important steps:
Stakeholder identification
Identification of all elements of the super system within which the System of Interest (i.e. the solution) shall operate
Identification of all environmental factors that can influence the System of Interest.
Once the problem is properly understood, SE will do the architecting - a top down decomposition process to discover Elements that will constitute the System of Interest (SoI) (more about architecting in a future article). Each element of the SoI will be owned by a disciplinary person/group. They need to do ST too! Steps-1, 2 & 3 above, need to be revisited constantly by SE and by the disciplinary groups owning each element. As the solutions gain clarity and detail - a new Stakeholder, a new super-system element, a new environmental factor can emerge anytime!
In this article, we have clarified the connection between ST and SE, and how you would start with ST, go to SE, and then keep coming back to ST as needed. As shown in the illustration above, various ST interventions during system development lead to a better solution that is expected to delight end-user/customer.
Final Note: You may hear the term ‘Systems Approach’ being used when talking about SE. In such cases, just remember that the speaker/ author usually refers to an approach that involves some combination of ST and SE.
- KS & DH
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