A Lifetime of Systems Thinking • Hacker News Board

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#71

Post by jmcqk6 » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #50

kqr2 wrote: post #47

The Six Revelations from the article: Improving the performance of the parts of a system taken separately will not necessarily improve the performance of the whole; in fact, it may harm the whole. Problems are not disciplinary in nature but are holistic. The best thing that can be done to a problem is not to solve it but to dissolve it. The healthcare system of the United States is not a healthcare system; it is a si…

> The educational system is not dedicated to produce learning by students, but teaching by teachers—and teaching is a major obstruction to learning. 1) The education system is designed to corral children for working hours so their parents can be cogs in the machine. 2) The education system is designed to produce a minimum competence so that the students can eventually become cogs in the machine. At no point was the p…

People keep using the phrase "the education system is designed", but it really wasn't. People who say this really have no idea about the history of public education in this country, nor it's ongoing operation.

The system has been a tool used by some to advance their own selfish goals, but it's hard to say things about the system as a whole that is is actually honestly applicable across the entire system.

And it's even more complicated by the grudges people hold against the terrible teachers they had. it's understandable. Teachers hold important positions of authority in our most vulnerable and developing years. When they do not do what's best for us, it's a massive betrayal, and I can see why many would hold onto that and allow that to shape their entire view of the system. But it is an extremely skewed view.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#72

Post by RHSman2 » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

brody_hamer wrote: post #66

throwawayboise wrote: post #32

> The interactive manager plans backward from where he wants to be ideally, right now, not forward to where he wants to be in the future. I'm having trouble understanding this point. Is he saying the interactive manager looks backwards at what he might have done differently in the past, to be in a better place today? Would a better term for this be a "retrospective manager"? Or does this mean something else?

I’ve heard this put another way, when someone asked me: “what did the ideal version of yourself do differently today?” Which I found to be a dramatically different, and dramatically easier question to answer than something like “where do you want to be in 5 years?” I found it help me shift away from trying to make predictions, and towards making healthy, productive (not self-sabotaging), well-rounded decisions with o…

Brilliant

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#73

Post by bmitc » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

bjterry wrote: post #60

I have been thinking a lot about Systems Thinking recently. Will Larson writes in An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management that it's one of the most useful general tools he's discovered for approaching management problems. That inspired me to read Donella Meadows Thing in Systems , but even after reading that, I'm not sure how to apply it to engineering organizations. It's only tangential to this topic, b…

You might be interested in Stafford Beer's work and books, which applies cybernetics to organizational management.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#74

Post by Terretta » Mon, Jun 07, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

brody_hamer wrote: post #66

throwawayboise wrote: post #32

> The interactive manager plans backward from where he wants to be ideally, right now, not forward to where he wants to be in the future. I'm having trouble understanding this point. Is he saying the interactive manager looks backwards at what he might have done differently in the past, to be in a better place today? Would a better term for this be a "retrospective manager"? Or does this mean something else?

I’ve heard this put another way, when someone asked me: “what did the ideal version of yourself do differently today?” Which I found to be a dramatically different, and dramatically easier question to answer than something like “where do you want to be in 5 years?” I found it help me shift away from trying to make predictions, and towards making healthy, productive (not self-sabotaging), well-rounded decisions with o…

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#75

Post by bjterry » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

gerbler wrote: post #69

bjterry wrote: post #60

I have been thinking a lot about Systems Thinking recently. Will Larson writes in An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management that it's one of the most useful general tools he's discovered for approaching management problems. That inspired me to read Donella Meadows Thing in Systems , but even after reading that, I'm not sure how to apply it to engineering organizations. It's only tangential to this topic, b…

Have you come across Business Dynamics by John Sterman? It's essentially Meadows approach applied to the business environment, including thinking about general organizational structure.

Thanks, this is a great recommendation based on the Amazon reviews!

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#76

Post by aethertap » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

charles_f wrote: post #18

solatic wrote: post #16

> The educational system is not dedicated to produce learning by students, but teaching by teachers—and teaching is a major obstruction to learning. Yes and no. Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt has a different take (one I agree with), which argues that the educational system is dedicated to producing political discipline. Yes, this serves the interest of the teachers, and no, the system is not designed to produce le…

I think the point here is on instructionism vs. constructionism - learning by experience (constructing things) seem to work better and in particular for long term assimilation than learning from instructors telling you. I think Epstein was putting it in Range as something along the lines of "you need to struggle to really learn". Constructionism can take many forms, from hands on projects and workshops, to frequent i…

I've been homeschooling my children for about four years, and figuring out how to achieve experiential learning has been a primary goal for the entire time. It has been very tricky for me to get it right, because there is a constant need to balance between over- and under-challenging them, and the process of struggling that's so crucial to learning is also self-defeating because it generates so much frustration. Emotional resilience is a skill that I think is foundational to being able to learn in this way, but it's been glossed over in the materials I've read on constructivist learning. The closest I've seen is the material about growth mindsets, but it's generally vastly oversimplified in my opinion.

The approach I'm currently working with is to ask them to do difficult tasks (such as math problems that don't have a straightforward, mechanical process to produce an answer), then I watch them work. When they get stuck, I try to get them to explore what they know and think about what would help them break a bit of new ground, but so far it's been very hard to guide without showing. Generally, they struggle for a bit and then I show them a couple of ways in which they could make progress. This seems to have very good results, but I can't imagine how it could be institutionalized effectively when you start to get beyond the most elementary topics. Even with only two students it's challenging to manage.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#77

Post by pjmorris » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

bjterry wrote: post #60

I have been thinking a lot about Systems Thinking recently. Will Larson writes in An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management that it's one of the most useful general tools he's discovered for approaching management problems. That inspired me to read Donella Meadows Thing in Systems , but even after reading that, I'm not sure how to apply it to engineering organizations. It's only tangential to this topic, b…

In addition to the other excellent recommendations here, I'd suggest the work of Jerry Weinberg. He wrote 'An Introduction to General Systems Thinking,' and he applied systems thinking in the work that he did. The two works that come to mind in view of your question are 'How To Become a Technical Leader', focused on the individual manager and their team, and the four-volume 'Quality Software Management', focused on both the manager and the organization.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#78

Post by qznc » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

throwawayboise wrote: post #32

> The interactive manager plans backward from where he wants to be ideally, right now, not forward to where he wants to be in the future. I'm having trouble understanding this point. Is he saying the interactive manager looks backwards at what he might have done differently in the past, to be in a better place today? Would a better term for this be a "retrospective manager"? Or does this mean something else?

If you drop the assumptions that you can forecast or plan, you can only do small steps "interactively". So invest no effort into planning but think about the last days and change something so you will make better decisions tomorrow. For example, have real time metrics so you can quickly observe the impact of deployed changes.

People like Ackoff are discussing healthcare and education systems. As a software developer I find I can't learn much about agility/velocity there.

"Retrospective" does not suggest anything about the delay. Could be a manager who comes up with 20yo war stories all the time. I rather believe it is about tight feedback loops and "interactive" captures that quite well.