As is mentioned by the professor, a system is an assemblage of components, interacting for a certain purpose. Alike, system thinking is a process of attaining some idea through the assemblage of possibilities and factors, which are always there and playing some significant roles on one another. Also, the course of system thinking is equipped with a clear purpose, too.
Thinking itself can be aimless and useless, if without some principle properties. So how can we apply these to the process of thinking? What should we own when we’re carrying out system thinking?
First of all, we must take what we’re considering and working on as a whole, which is the leading principle. All the components are individuals and have their unique properties, which may distract themselves from the whole. But in reality, these units are not separated at all, so they have relationships with others and must be associated with them when we’re solving some problems. If not, the system thinking won’t be integrated and in this way, something would be unintentionally neglected, such as the interaction between sections, or the potential causes-and-effects.
Once we’ve set a basic ground, the next key is our accurate way of doing it. After bearing the principle above in mind, we can divide the whole safely to solve problems one after another, so as to conquer the whole more efficiently. As in different parts, difficulties vary, which leads to hard work of separating the problems and at the same time, taking their interactions into account. The best way of eating up an elephant is dividing the mission into applicable size, and doing it. So it is with the system problem thinking. Once they are comparatively tiny, we can make it much more efficiently. At that time, our ability is urgently in need, which requires us to improve ourselves and gain better quality. And the last step to do is to gather the units, reminding ourselves the key relationships at all time. Then the tough thinking process is done, in a better way!
The third thing to see to is our solid aim. The system can’t be solved in a short term, so something, discouraging us from the original belief, will emerge. We must fix on the originally set purpose, because any subtle change in the main body will act significantly on the whole. But when we’ve fixed our attention on one topic, we can do it more attentively, and can avoid the outside interference to a greater extent.
Last but not least, we should improve the system from time to time. Because in the course of thinking, some afflatus emerges, which can lead to unexpected improvements to the whole system. And also, we should get the feedback and search for ideas from all aspects, as long as they can do something to the system.
The system thinking is not plain at all. It requires so much, including our maintenance of refreshing thoughts all the time. From some of my engineering learning, I can also get some of the ideas.
As a year 1 student, not exposed to so much yet, I just cite my programming experience here. When programming, we should firstly find the key purpose of the program, and think about the main structures of it. After that, we cite functions, the method called”divide-and-conquer”, which explains the division of the whole. Functions are effective to dispose some steps, and can be examined much faster when error occurs. Finally we invoke the functions in the main body, smoothly solve the whole problem at last.
In this process, we take it as a whole in mind all the time, although they’re solved separately. It can be imagined if we start from the beginning and do it without any division, the work is hard, for we must look for what we’ve claimed and check the previous programming all the time!
System thinking is a subtle thing, for there’s much more to be dug from it.
