What I don’t know far
outweighs what I do know.
The work-in-progress table
below contains some ideas for further reading, including some
sociological/anthropological views that are not addressed in this work. I have
read only some of these references.
|
Engineering
perspective |
Date |
Authors |
Publication and
Notes |
|
(1947) |
William Ross
Ashby |
Journal of General Psychology (1947). volume
37, pages 125–128. |
|
|
First order
cybernetics |
(1948) |
Norbert Weiner |
|
|
Design for a Brain: Esp. sessions 2 and appendix 1. |
(1952) |
William Ross
Ashby |
Chapman and Hall Organism as a
machine. Adaptation as stability. State-determined systems. |
|
Introduction to
Cybernetics |
(1956) |
William Ross
Ashby |
Chapman and Hall Law of Requisite
Variety |
|
System Dynamics |
(1950) |
Various |
The Electronic Oracle: Computer Models and Social
Decisions (1985) by Donella Meadows and J. M.
Robinson Kirkwood’s 1998
introduction to system dynamics
http://nutritionmodels.tamu.edu/copyrighted_papers/Kirkwood1998.pdf |
|
Thinking in
systems: A Primer. |
(2008) |
Donella Meadows |
Earthscan |
|
Lean/Quality |
|
Deming et al. |
John Seddon popularised. |
|
Biology / socio-technical perspective |
|
Authors |
Publication and
Notes |
|
General systems
theory Foundations, Development, Applications, |
(1968) |
von Bertalanffy,
L. |
General System Theory: Foundations, Development,
Applications (1969) by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy New York: George Braziller,
revised edition 1976 ISBN 0-8076-0453-4 |
|
Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development |
(1998) |
Laszlo and
Krippner |
Published in:
J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception.
Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Ch. 3, pp. 47-74. |
|
A Logical
Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity |
(1943) |
Warren McCulloch
and Walter Pitts |
Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 5:115-133. |
|
Autopoiesis and
Cognition |
(1979) |
Maturna and Varela |
Boston Studies
in the Philosophy of Science. Paperback, 1991. The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of
Human Understanding (1987) by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela |
|
Viable System
Model |
|
Stafford Beer: |
John
Walkers version http://www.esrad.org.uk/resources/vsmg_3/screen.php?page=preface |
|
Ackoff's Best: his
classic writings on management. |
(1999) |
Ackoff |
John Wiley &
Sons: New York |
|
Toward a Social
Ecology. |
(1972) |
Emery and Trist |
|
|
Soft Systems
Methodology |
(1981) |
Peter Checkland |
Peter Checkland and John
Poulter http://www.crawfordev.anu.edu.au/public_policy_community/ content/doc/2010_Checkland_Soft_systems_methodology.pdf |
|
Human Systems
Are Different (Paperback) |
(1984) |
Geoffrey Vickers
|
|
|
Sociology
/anthropology perspective |
|
Authors |
Publication and
Notes |
|
Various |
Durkhiem, Marx, Weber, Tarde, Pareto, Habermas, Parsons, Jerry Weinberg |
||
|
Mind and Nature: A Necessary
Unity |
(1979) |
Bateson, G. |
Hampton Press. ISBN
1-57273-434-5. (Systems Theory, Complexity,
and the Human Sciences) |
|
"Chris Argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational
learning," |
(2001) |
Mark K. Smith |
Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method, and
Practice (1996) by Chris Argyris and Donald Schon http://www.infed.org/thinkers/argyris.htm See also John Seddon 2010 paper (WhynotallWorkingforL) |
|
The Reflective
Practitioner, How Professionals Think In Action |
(1983) |
Schön, D. |
Basic Books.
ISBN 0-465-06878-2. Peter Senge popularised reflective practice: "the capacity
to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning” |
|
Social
communication |
(2004) |
Luhmann |
http://www.zfog.bwl.uni-muenchen.de/files/mitarbeiter/paper2004_2.pdf |
Below are some hasty notes on
a few sources.
http://archive.syntonyquest.org/elcTree/resourcesPDFs/Systems_Thinking.pdf
Nice academic overview and
review. It suggests some concern about whole notion of a GST.
Many have set out to equate
concepts in different schools. Serendipity has led to many cross-disciplinary
advances.
But vacuous generalisations
are of limited help, and setting out with a determination to shape one
discipline using ideas from another could be more problem than solution.
http://kurtrichardson.com/publications/richardson_midgley.pdf
This recounts the historical
failure of attempts to shape one discipline using ideas from another.
It tells us engineering
methods have failed when applied to human organisations.
Engineering principles are
mostly irrelevant to its recommendations for tackling social problems.
It is far from clear that
“bounding” a problem domain, agreeing what is included and excluded, turns it
into a “system”.
For some human organisations,
the terms "system" and "systemic" seem inappropriate.
http://www.art-sciencefactory.com/complexity-map_feb09.html
This is very impressive, but
it doesn’t tally with my feeling that human organisations – in so far as they
can be described as systems at all - are simpler than complex man-made machines
and software systems. Biological things are more complex still.
And the human mind is the
most complex system we know.
“Fifty_years_of_systems_thinking_for_management”
(link formerly here now broken)
Jackson has promoted an
approach for “interventions” called Critical Systems Thinking. Jackson’s references
include the kind of works that might appear in an MBA course.
·
Jake Chapman, System Failure: Why Government Must Learn to think
Differently (Demos)
·
John Seddon, Freedom from Command and Control
(Vanguard)
·
ODPM, A Systematic Approach to Service Improvement :
·
Evaluating Systems Thinking in Housing
·
Patrick Hoverstadt, The Fractal Organization
(Wiley)
Our "Systems Theory for
Architects" does not address this end of the systems thinking spectrum.