The Seven Habits of a System Savvy Person
A system savvy person is one who lives by the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One who believes that the functioning of a part cannot be properly understood without considering its relations with its environment and with othe
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Abstract A system savvy person is one who lives by the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One who believes that the functioning of a part cannot be properly understood without considering its relations with its environment and with other related systems. This is in contrast to the reductionists, who believe that all phenomena can be explained and understood by dissecting them into their smallest components and examining their individual properties. A system savvy person makes realistic models and is better equipped to optimize a system by focusing on the underlying causes rather than on its symptoms. This person strives to make a system more efficient by reducing delays, removing various barriers, and by making continuous improvements. This concluding chapter highlights seven main system issues, which were covered in earlier chapters. It starts with a discussion on the creation of right mental and conceptual models and then on to building realistic and useful models. That is followed by considerations on optimization, robustness, making continuous improvements, and reducing unintended consequences. The chapter concludes with a discussion on holistic worldview.
10.1 Create Right Mental and Conceptual Models We all create mental and conceptual models to deal with the systems we encounter in our work and in our daily lives. These models need to be realistic and detailed enough to help us understand the problems and to find their solutions. Often, those models are precursor to more formal models, which are used for simulation © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 A. Ghosh, Dynamic Systems for Everyone, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43943-3_10
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and optimization. There are four items that are of prime importance to the creation and use of these models. They are setting perspective at right level, closing feedback loops, thinking dynamically, and documenting them properly.
10.1.1 Set Perspective at the Right Level During the cholera outbreak in London in nineteenth century, John Snow attempted to understand its cause by focusing on the percentage of population afflicted in each borough of the city rather than on individual cases. In doing so, he was able to identify a public well whose water was contaminated with cholera bacillus. Thus, by setting right perspective, John Snow was able to find the source of outbreak, which had eluded others. Here, taking the right perspective means looking at the right level for the problem under consideration. A common English expression, “can’t see the forest for the trees,” aptly describes the predicament. It means that one is unable to see the bigger picture if the focus is on the details. There one needs to step back to get the right perspective. The level of detail needs to vary according to the nature of the problem that is under consideration. A doctor treating a cholera patient needs to focus on the condition of that patient rather than on the general conditions of a group that are afflicted, whereas, a re
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