Introduction to Systems Thinking

Introduction to Systems Thinking

Zaipul Anwar Bin Zainudin Lecturer in Institute of Product Design & Manufacturing, (IPROM) Universiti Kuala Lumpur Tel: 03-27154715, 019-3262427 Email: zaipul@gmail.com Website: http://www.zaipul.com Blog: http://zaipul.com/category/blogs Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zaipul You may download softcopies of all my materials in this session from this link: http://www.zaipul.com/download/tech-innovation-mgt/ - To verify the URL, go to ‘Download’ link at my website Zaipul.com ABOUT THE SPEAKER

“The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking at which they were created.” Albert Einstein

WHAT IS SYSTEMS THINKING? • Founded in 1956 by MIT professor, Jay Forrester. • System thinking allows people to make their understanding of social system explicit and improve them in the same way that people use engineering principles to improve their understanding of mechanical system. • It is use to:- • Examining how we create our own problems • Seeing the big picture • Structure influences performance

SYSTEM THINKING APPROACH

Examples of area System Thinking has proven its value include: • Complex problems that involve helping many actors see the “big picture” and not just their part of it • Recurring problems or those that have been made worse by past attempts to fix them • Issues where an action affects (or is affected by) the environment surrounding the issue, either the natural environment or the competitive environment • Problems whose solutions are not obvious

!!! ?? ?? Systems ThinkingLearning to see the world systemically Encourages us to see the whole as well as the parts. • WHOLE   PARTS •  Holistic Thinking Multiple (often) restricted views

Systems Thinking… Helps us explore interdependencies and looking for patterns. Max Barret Webecoist.com

Systems Thinking… Helps us understand feedback structures that change systems over time. River Fractal - Héctor Garrido

Systems Thinking… Helps us understand results of our decisions… http://www.systems-thinking.org/theWay/theWay.htm

SYSTEMS THINKING TOOLS • Causal Loop Diagrams • A useful way to represent dynamic interrelationships • Provide a visual representation with which to communicate that understanding • Make explicit one's understanding of a system structure - Capture the mental model

Components of Causal Loop Diagrams • Variables - an element in a situation which may act or be acted upon •  Vary up or down over time (not an event) •  Nouns or noun phrases (not action words) • Links / Arrows - show the relationship and the direction • of influence between variables • S's and O's - show the way one variable moves or changes in relation to another •  S or + stands for "same direction” •  O or - stands for "opposite direction” • or B - Balancing feedback loop that seeks equilibrium • or R - Reinforcing feedback loop that amplifies change

Behavior Over Time Supportive Behavior Perf. Level Unsupportive Behavior Time Types of Causal Loop Diagrams Reinforcing Loop Structure Employee Performance Employee Performance S S Supervisor’s Supportive Behavior Supervisor’s Supportive Behavior

Behavior Over Time Actual Inventory 100 ++ Desired Inventory 100 100 - - Time Types of Causal Loop Diagrams Balancing Loop Structure Desired Inventory S Discrepancy O S Actual Inventory Inventory Adjustment S

SYSTEMS THINKING ARCHETYPES • A class of tools that capture the "common stories” in systems thinking • Powerful tools for diagnosing problems and identifying high leverage interventions that creates fundamental change

List of System Thinking Archetype • Fixes that Fail / Backfire • Limits to Growth/Success • Shifting the Burden / Addiction • Tragedy of the Commons • Drifting Goals

1. Fixes that Fail S Behavior Over Time Problem Symptom Fix O Delay S S Time Unintended Consequences

1. Fixes that Fail Example: An example would be fixing problem of a squeaky wheel. Imagine someone who knows nothing about mechanics, mistakenly grab a can of water and splash it on the wheel. With great relief the squeaking stop for a while, it will return more loudly as the water join forces to rust the joint.

1. Fixes that Fail Prescriptive actions: • Increase awareness of the unintended consequences • Cut back on the frequency with which you apply the ‘fix’ • Try to minimize the undesirable consequences • Reframe and address the root problem, give up the fix that works only on the symtom • Breaking ‘fixes that fail’ merely alleviating a symptom, not really solving the problem. A two pronged attack of applying fix and finding fundamental solution will help to break the problem.

2. Limits to Growth Behavior Over Time Perf. Level Time Structure “Burnout” S Growing Action Target Diminishing Returns S O S Positive Reinforcement Corrective Action Actual Performance S

2. Limits to Growth

2. Limits to Growth Example: At the beginning of a quality improvement campaign, significant gains in quality and productivity were achieved. Once this achieved, the level of improvements plateaus. The next wave of improvements are more complex and tougher to manage. Later the lack of organization-wide support leads to limited/diminishing quality and productivity of the whole organization (it becomes stagnant or diminish).

2. Limits to Growth • Prescriptive actions: • Beware of doing more of what worked in the past. • If your growth has stalled, look at both reinforcing and balancing loops to try to find interrelationships between your success strategies and potential limits. • Look for other potential engines of growth. • The real leverage in ‘limits to growth’ scenario lies in its early phases. • The choice between plateauing or peaking often depends on length of balancing loop delay and our response to it.

3. Shifting the Burden Quick fixes + _ + _ Problem/symptom Side effects + _ _ + Time Source of problem /Root cause _ Behavior Over Time Efforts Quick fix Problem symptom Capacity of system to fix itself

+ _ + _ Damage of Road Feeling of Okay + _ _ + Time Proper Road Contruction _ Apply Patches Behavior Over Time 3. Shifting the Burden Apply patches Damage of road Proper road construction

3. Shifting the Burden Example: Problem of pot holes on the road. The problem is handled by applying patches with immediate effect, thereby solving the problem for a while. The primary source of the problem is overlooked, that is the overall quality of the road construction. The origin of the problem should be identified and solved in the long-term run or else the quality of the road will be further diminished.

3. Shifting the Burden Prescriptive actions: • Strengthen the long-term solution. • If possible, support only long-term solution. If you must address the symtoms right away, do so with restraint. • As you strengthen long-term capability, do what you can to reduce dependency on the short-term fix.

A B S B’s Activity Time Time Net Gains for B S 4. Tragedy of the Commons Net Gains for A S Resource Limit S A’s Activity S S S Gain per Individual Activity O Total Activity S S

A B Time Time 4. Tragedy of the Commons Fixed Budget S Investment in features S O Success from Product Investment O Investment in Integration S Perceived Success from Integration S DELAY Investment in Integration S Success from Product Investment O O S Investment in features Fixed Budget S

4. Tragedy of the Commons Example: Traffic jam in Kuala Lumpur. Everyone wishes to avoid traffic jam will use the highway. At first there is room for everyone, but after sometimes critical threshold has been reached, each driver brings about decrease in average speed. As individuals each person feels he or she is a victim of traffic but in effect they all conspired as a group to create traffic jam.

4. Tragedy of the Commons Prescriptive actions: • In any of the ‘tragedy’ situations, there must be an overriding legislation for common good. • To protect common resources some form of regulation should be introduced. • Re-evaluate the nature of the commons to determine if there are ways to replace, renew or substitute the resources before it becomes depleted.

5. Drifting Goals Goal Time O Goal Pressure to Lower Goal S S Gap S O Actual Corrective Action S Delay

Time 5. Drifting Goals S Perceived Desired Temperature Tolerance for Temperature O S Temp Temperature Gap S O Hop Out

Example: If you put a frog in cold water and slowly bring the water to boil the frog will jump out when it gets uncomfortable or even died in the boiling water If you put a frog in boiling water, it will croak IMMEDIATELY. 5. Drifting Goals

5. Drifting Goals Prescriptive actions: • Establish a clear transition plan from current reality to the goal including realistic timeframe to achieve the goal. • Determine whether the drift in performance is the result of conflicts between the stated goal and implicit goals in the system. • Anchor the goal to an external frame of reference (benchmarking).

Systems ThinkingCase Study Crop Damaging by Insects

Reducing Crop Damage by Insects: • When an insect is eating a crop, the conventional response is to spray the crop with a pesticide designed to kill that insect. • Putting aside the limited effectiveness of some pesticides and the water and soil pollution they can cause, imagine a perfect pesticide that kills all of the insects against which it is used and which has no side effects on air, water, or soil. • Is using this pesticide likely to make the farmer or company whose crops are being eaten better off?

Reducing Crop Damage by Insects: If we represent the thinking used by those applying the pesticides, it would look like this: Pesticide Application Insects Damaging Crops O • The letter indicates how the two variables are related: an “s” means they change in the same direction - if one goes up then the other goes up, and an “o” means they change in the opposite direction - if one goes up then the other goes down (or vice versa). • This diagram is read “a change in the amount of pesticide applied causes the number of insects damaging crops to change in the opposite direction.” • The belief being represented here is that “as the amount of pesticide applied increases, the number of insects damaging crops decreases”.

Reducing Crop Damage by Insects: Number of Insect A Damaging Crop O O Number of Insect B Pesticide Application S S Number of Insect B Damaging Crop S Total number of Insects damaging crop S

Reducing Crop Damage by Insects: • The problem of crop damage due to insects often does get better - in the short term. • Unfortunately, what frequently happens is that in following years the problem of crop damage gets worse and worse and the pesticide that formerly seemed so effective does not seem to help anymore. • This is because the insect A that was eating the crops was controlling the population of another insect B, either by preying on it or by competing with it. • When the pesticide kills the insects A that were eating the crops, it eliminates the control that those insects were applying on the population of the other insects, insects B). • Then the population of the insects B that were being controlled explodes and continue to damage the crops.

Reducing Crop Damage by Insects: So now how do you solve the problem of Insect B damaging the crop? Find the solution…..

Reducing Crop Damage by InsectsThe solution: With this picture of the system in mind, other actions with better long-term results have been developed, such as Integrated Pest Management, which includes controlling the insect eating the crops by introducing more of its predators into the area. These methods have been proven effective in studies conducted by MIT, the National Academy of Sciences, and others, and they also avoid running the risk of soil and water pollution.

THE FIFTH DISCIPLINES To more about Systems Thinking, read this book! Personal Mastery Shared Vision Mental Models Systems Thinking Team Learning

References Warfield, J. Societal Systems, Intersystems, 1989. Joseph O’Connor & Ian McDermott. The Art of Systems Thinking, Thorsons, 1997. Senge, P.M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, Doubleday, 1990. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building A Learning Organization, Doubleday, 1994. System Dynamics / Systems Thinking Mega Link List http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/users/gossimit/links/bookmksd.htm The Way of Systems (System Archetypes) http://www.outsights.com/systems/theWay/theWay.htm Daniel Aronson, Overview of Systems Thinking, 1996-8 http://www.thinking.net

Introduction to Systems Thinking