System theory for enterprise architects “The most important work on EA and applied System Theory today.” “Makes EA more powerful, coherent and usable.” Click here for the next “System Theory for EA” tutorial in London				Scientific idealism
				Descriptions <create and use> <idealise> Describers <observe & envisage> Realities
Blurb Introducing the subject matter Comments				Home page
1: Philosophy	2: Description & information	3: “Systems thinking”	4: General system theory	5: Enterprises as systems
Philosophical position statement Knowledge and truth *	Toward a theory of everything The magic number 7 *	Systems thinkers and approaches * Some other thinkers	Introducing system theory * GST principles *	System theory in enterprise architecture * Business system modelling premises
Scientific idealism	Description & information	The schism in systems thinking	General system properties	Business system models
The problem of universals * Description and reality (a reader asks) A philosophy for system theory * The 9 propositions of scientific idealism Insights from the idealism triangle System description as scientific idealism	The evolution of description * The evolution of types Taxonomies and ontologies * An information theory - part 1 * An information theory - part 2 Other information theories	The schism in thinking of systems * From science to scientism The emerging concensus in system theory EA, GST and social system thinking Social entities v. social systems Actors, roles and assignments	Introducing system properties * Holism and emergent properties * Encapsulation Information feedback loops The primacy of behaviour (services) Determinism and hysteresis	Premise 1: Encapsulation by interfaces Premise 2: Behaviours run over time Premise 3: Structures need space Premise 4: Data conveys meaning Premise 5: Models are abstractions Premise 6: Things are typified 16
More…	Type theory	Some systems thinkers	Questionable system properties	Business capabilities
Existence in space and time Ontology and phenomenology Logical positivism (Wittgenstein) About life Relevance of the above to EA	Set and type theory * Types in different disciplines How things instantiate types Why we confuse types and instances Types and meta types Types and instances – analysis	Boulding’s ideas * Ackoff’s ideas * Ashby on cybernetics * Ashby’s law and Beer’s use of it * Maturana’s biological autopoiesis Luhmann’s sociological autopoiesis *	Change: adaptation and evolution Complexity Goal-directedness Chaos and non-linear behaviour Unpredictability Agility?	Business architecture as per system theory Business capabilities as social systems EA in the system theory space EA as applied system theory Quality systems
	More…	System/problem classifications	Discrete v. continuous systems	Abstraction
	Insights from description theory The psychology of description The philosophy of description Principles for a controlled vocabulary Data and reality – after Bill Kent Mental models and how brains work	Introducing system classification Ackoff’s system classes Snowden’s Cynefin framework People classes Hierarchical & network organisation	Relativity v quantum mechanics Discrete event-driven systems (DEDS) Continuous System Dynamics * Converting discrete to continuous *	Idealisation in system theory Abstraction from “the real machine” Abstraction in the eternal golden braid Abstraction varieties and typology Abstraction in TOGAF and Zachman
			More about systems	More…
			The elements of systems Primacy of external and behavioural views Terms and concepts in system description The anatomy of the reference model Formalising system description System theory dictionary and ontology	Architects, descriptions and systems Architectural descriptions of systems EA as multi-level architecture description The practical terminology challenge Architecture after TOGAF, Zachman etc
References	References	Other	Other	More…
System theory and thinking references Laszlo and Krippner quotes & references Philosophical dichotomies	Summary and references	ISO 42010 in a nutshell What ISO 42010 means ISO change proposal	System state: entities and identities Homeostasis and control Hierarchies and lattices. Enterprise state data Modelling madness.	Functionality and Logicality Granularity and Modularity Composition and Generalisation Systems as abstractions UML types and instances Modelling the passage of time

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