System Structure and Behavior
Intro to Systems
- We can understand how systems work once we understand their structure and behaviour. By extension, therefore, we can understand why they produce the results they do and then shift them into better behaviour patterns. The behaviour of the system can be different from what is expected from it based on it’s elements.
- On one hand, we are taught to analyze and use our rational ability to trace direct paths from cause to effect. On the other hand, we have to deal with systems that are complex and don’t necessarily decide effect based on the cause.
- A system is an interconnected set of elements coherently organized so as to achieve a purpose. A sytem is thus, characterized by it’s element, their relationship with each other and the purpose they serve. There’s an integrity or wholeness about the system and an active set of mechanisms to maintain that integrity.
- Elements are the easily recognizable part of the system. They can be tangible or intangible. We can keep dividing elements into sub-elements into sub-sub elements and so on.
- Interconnections are a bit difficult to recognize but they are what empowers the system. Some are flows of tangible while some can be purely a flow of information or something.
- Purpose is the most difficult part of the system to figure out. They aren’t written or described anywhere. They can just be determined by behaviour, and not be rhetoric or stated goals.
- Any model, mental or mathematical, and system therefore, is a simplified representation of the actual world and cannot contain each and every nuance of the actual world.
- Systems can be nested within systems i.e. purposes within purposes. For example, within a country, there are several people and orgs, and each has different purpose.
Understanding Systems Behaviour
- Stocks are the elements of the system that we can see, feel, count or in general, measure at any point of time.
- Stocks change over time with the action of flows i.e. inflows and outflows
- Our minds, focus more easily on stocks than flows. Even when we focus on flows, we focus more easily on inflows than outflows.
- Stocks change slowly. Why? Because flows take time to flow. We often underestimate the inherent momentum of the stock.
- Presence of stocks allows inflows and outflows to be different from each other. Else, we’d have to take out petroleum exactly at the rate we consume it.
- We humans have invented hundreds of stock-maintaining mechanisms to make inflows and outflows independent and stable. People monitor stocks continuously and make decisions and take actions designed to raise or lower stocks or to keep them within acceptable ranges. For example, we go shopping when we have only a few packets of noodles left.
How the System Runs Itself Feedback
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