Systems Thinking - What is a System?
What is Systems
Thinking? | Why
Use Systems Thinking Techniques? | What
is a System?
Systems Thinkiing Methodologies | Systems
Thinking Applications
What is a System?
Systems thinking techniques may be used to study any kind of system -- natural, scientific, human, or conceptual.
Examples
Systems thinking often involves considering a "system" in different ways:
Rather than trying to improve the braking system on a car by looking in
great detail at the composition of the brake pads (reductionist), the boundary
of the braking system may be extended to include not only the components
of the car, but the driver, the road and the weather, and considering the
interactions between them.
Looking at something as a series of conceptual systems according to multiple
viewpoints. A supermarket could be considered as a "profit making system" from
the perspective of management, an "employment system" from the perspective
of the staff, and a "shopping system" -- or perhaps an "entertainment
system" -- from the perspective of the customers. As a result of such
thinking, new insights may be gained into how the supermarket works, why it
has problems, or how changes made to one such system may impact on the others.
From Wikipedia.