There are a number of habits that one should practice to improve their Systems Thinking skills. This graphic is from the Waters Foundation Systems Thinking in Schools site.
There exists a well defined set of possible ways to alter an existing set of interactions. Each of these alterations will produce a particular effect depending on the relations the change is relative to. Identifying which are possible and which will migrate the interactions to produce the desired situation is the essence of the strategy.
When endeavoring to develop an understanding of the nature of something it is generally useful to create a model of some type to aid in surfacing that understanding.
New Learning tend to reduce Outdated Thinking, Communicating & Learning though our Outdated Thinking, Communicating & Learning inhibits new learning. The question is then how do we break this cycle. Adopted from "An Introduction to Systems Thinking with STELLA" by Barry Richmond.
If we are to develop a strategy for dealing with a situation we must first understand what has caused the situation to be the way it is. If we don't know why it is the way it is then any action we take is little more than meddling and unlikely to produce the desired result.
When endeavoring to develop an understanding of the nature of something it is generally useful to create a model of some type to aid in surfacing that understanding.
Developing a strategy for dealing with a situation begins with a description of the situation and the preferred state for today, not in some distant future, and the perceived implications of not doing anything.
If we pay close attention to our actions and the typical outcomes of those actions it would be evident that there are frequently occurring patterns that develop. And there is a relation between the patterns.
There exists a well defined set of possible ways to alter an existing set of interactions. Each of these alterations will produce a particular effect depending on the relations the change is relative to. Identifying which are possible and which will migrate the interactions to produce the desired situation is the essence of the strategy.
The model construction process is actually a balancing loop which endeavors to employ an abstract version of real events to form a model which produces conclusions and behavior which mimic the real events.
When we're trying to understand a situation it is often very helpful to have a sense of the historical trends of several dimensions relevant to the situation.
Our actions are based on our beliefs and the results of those actions are the basis for our beliefs. The difficulty we create for ourselves is that we make assumptions as to how to interpret the results we select based on our beliefs. As a result we are often operating on a flawed perspective of reality.
While understanding the interacting components responsible for the situation is important it is even more important to understand the stakeholders as they are the ones responsible for the interacting components being the way they are.
