Learning Systems Thinking

Chapter 1. What Is Systems Thinking?

Vision without systems thinking ends up painting lovely pictures of the future with no deep understanding of the forces that must be mastered to move from here to there.

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline (Currency)

You might imagine that when you finish reading Learning Systems Thinking, you will have learned to think in systems. Nothing could be further from the truth. Systems thinking is a practice, a perspective, a framework, an emerging language…we could even call it a way of life.

Reading a book about tennis won’t teach you to play tennis. You must go outside and play tennis. It’s the same with systems thinking. Experience is needed to change your thinking. I hope that while you are reading this book, you will go outside and play with systems.

This book describes a system for thinking about systems. Reading it will give you context, guidance, vocabulary, and practices. What does a world in which I “think in systems” look like? How do I navigate toward it?

What do I do there? Why does it matter? What practices, principles, and tools will I need to be successful?

My favorite quick introduction to systems thinking is Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1. Tools of a system thinker (Credit: emmasegal.co, illustrator)

For technology professionals, this ...