Chapter 2 Systems Thinking

I took a speed reading course and read “War and Peace” in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

Woody Allen

Chapter

• Seeing System Dynamics 13

• Seeing Mental Models 25

• Example: The “Faster is Slower” Dynamic 26

• Seeing Root Causes 29

• Seeing (and Hearing) Local Optimization 32

“No matter what we do, the number of defects in our backlog remains about the same,” a manager told us; this for a 15 MSLOC C and C++ product with several hundred developers where we were working (and adopting lean principles). What’s going on? Systems thinking may help. In small groups the forces at play are more quickly seen and informally understood, but in large product development—or any large system—it’s tough. Gerry Weinberg highlights ...

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