Reflection 3: Thinking in System

The book ‘Thinking in System’ introduces a new framework to analysis problems. Instead of starting with the original logic of the cause-effect relationship, the book presents a way to analyze the situation in a broader scope, an analysis of the system. The book mentions that a system is usually composed of elements, interconnections, and purpose of function. Elements are the individual object that could form the system, interconnections are relationships between those elements, and the purpose of function is what a system could achieve in general. It is a very straightforward approach to breaking down any complicated phenomenon, yet I’ve never thought about it before.
But breaking down a system into three major components is not enough for a model. The book then introduces the definition of stocks and flows. Stock is the element that can be quantified in a system, and flow is how the stocks change over time. With the idea of stock and flow, the system now becomes a dynamic system. More concepts have been introduced in this book to build up a system framework, ways to run a system well, and reasons for systematic failures.
This book correlates with a lot of things I’ve learned in our design thinking class. To my understanding, one of the primary mindsets that are required for design thinking is to think and analyze in a system. We need to distinguish the major elements incorporated in the system, find and understand the interconnections linked between the elements and have a clear idea of the targeted purpose of function. In class, we’ve mentioned the importance of “making sure that we are solving the right question.” Trying to understand the problem as a system will help us find out the right question and solve it. Yet, in a real-life situation, more influential factors could vary the system we’re trying to analyze. As one of the most critical assumptions of economics, humans behave irrationally. Trying to conclude those behaviors into models will lead to a dead end. But just as the book mentioned and discussed in class, we cannot satisfy everyone. There’s a trade-off in selecting the elements we want to include in our model, so do our targeted customers. If a design is designated to satisfy everyone, it’s probably a bad one.
The book mentions one causation of failure in understanding a system is the limitation incomprehension. Humans often subconsciously conclude everything in a cause-effect way, limiting the ability to find the actual interconnection and purpose of function of a system, sometimes even failing at defining the system. This is also a point that I found very hard to conquer when it comes to our project. We are often disguised by the direct cause-effect connection between customer behavior and choices, but the actual interconnection might lie beneath the phenomenon we see.
Another idea that inspired me is the idea of addiction, in which an intervenor helps a system fix a problem temporarily while causing elements in the system to rely on the intervenor but doesn’t solve the problem in the long run. The book concludes it as a reason for system failure. However, it makes me realize that some of the design ideas and business opportunities are initialized because of those flaws in a system. And new designs and innovations would act like intervenors and be introduced into the system. Once the addiction is formed, a new market is being taken by those innovations.
The book lists resilience, self-organization, and hierarchy as properties a system should have to perform well. I found hierarchy is an important concept that should be applied when testing design or business ideas. As I previously mentioned, finding the right targeted system and elements are essential because it’s impossible to solve problems for everyone. Thus, setting up a hierarchy of what problem to solve and which group of customers to focus on inside the system on which we’re trying to focus is essential, especially at the starting-up period. The top of the hierarchy should be the critical problem we’re trying to solve and the customers with the highest acceptance rate to our solution. Those customers should also be the first group of people to test our ideas and provide feedback. This step would set the foundation for the future performance of our design and if it will succeed or not.
This book provides a concise yet comprehensive framework for systematic thinking. My reflection could only partially refer to some of its main ideas. I would strongly recommend this book to everyone who wants to develop their analysis capability. Even if some of the ideas were hard to apply in real life, the new perspectives it provides would help.