The systems models should be of appropriate quality as to be fit for purpose. But check that the purposes include all purposes i.e. not just function but risk, safety, affordability, sustainability, resilience etc.
Principle:P2 of proper duty of care
A duty of care is a legal obligation to act to a reasonable standard. Not to do so is negligent. All players should have clearly defined appropriate responsibilities and be clearly accountable. Are the players competent to carry out their roles and functions?
Principle: P3 of integrating people, purposes, products, old processes to create better performances
Do the processes include: a) Firming the foundations FF by:
FF Design – being curious, open minded, identifying issues,
FF Build – developing the vision, clarifying values,
FF Operation – reflecting, learning, understanding the models, b) Strengthening the structures by:
SS Design – collaborating, creating relationships, defining responsibilities,
SS Build – building networks, getting advice, solving problems,
SS Operation – improving relationships, adapting, c) Working well by:
WW Design – learning from evidence,
WW Build – being resourceful & resilient in making decisions,
WW Operation – creating and enhancing quality?
Principle:P4 of sufficient structure
Are the systems model processes:
sufficiently discriminatory – all terms are as distinct and as clear as required,
sufficiently consistent – the content of the model are compatible and not self-contradictory,
sufficiently cohesive – the content of the model are integrated so that it all hangs together,
sufficiently concordant – conflicts and differences of all kinds are identified with procedures to resolve or manage them?
Principle: P5 of sufficient content
Are the systems models: balanced between contrasting pairs such as detail and overview, risk and opportunity etc.,
sufficient for the stated purposes i.e. contain the requisite detail, necessary – i.e. do they contain all that must be contained;
locally important,
of requisite variety – content is widely applicable and appropriately diverse?
Principle: P6 of control
Are the processes:
being guided towards desirable outcomes
such that risks are being managed
from the uncertainties being identified and monitored
and the lessons being learned?
Principle: P7 of evidence
Evidence is an attribute of the ‘what’ of a process:
evidence is gathered both quantitatively and qualitatively such that timely decisions and interventions are made to keep processes on track towards purposeful outcomes
Systemic processes are central to my approach to systems thinking.
Everything – every object – exists in time. Therefore every object has a life cycle and is a process. But the process is set in the context of a system containing other connected processes – some at higher and some at lower levels of definition. We capture those processes using mind maps to create a processs model.
All processes have attributes that we characterise using why, how, who, what, where, when.
Why attributes include all expressions of sucess as purpose including vision, mission, objectives and targets.
How attributes include all models of transformations of inputs to outputs, including physical systems (scientific) models, method statements, systems models, resources requirements
Who attributes include all of the people involved – the players or actors- and their roles and functions. In particular the process owner is the leader responsible for the delivery of success to the client(s) and keeping all stakeholders informed of progress.
What attributes include all expressions (models) of structure and form, state variables, performance indicators, inputs and outputs as well as Italian Flags or any other summary measures of progress or performance.
Where attributes include definitions of systems boundaries, contextual assumptions as well as physical site or place as location.
When attributes include durations and times such as earliest/latest start, earliest/latest finish, float from e.g. a critical path network analysis.
These variables manifest tyemselves in physical hard systems as in the table below.
We can compare some hard system derivatives with speculative soft ones as in table below
Concept
Hard – e.g. Mechanics
Soft – suggested equivalent
Across Variable: Potential V
(Why)
Velocity
Motivation: The rate of change of willpower (self-control): volition for purposeful effective action
Through Variable: Flow q
(Who, What)
Force
Rate of external change through action
Integrated V: x = ∫Vdt
Displacement
Will: strength of purpose
Differentiated V: y = dV/dt
Acceleration
Increasing motivation
Integrated q: z = ∫qdt
Momentum
Change
Power P = Vq
Power
The capacity to influence change: authority, means, competence, capability, proficiency
Work W = ∫qdx
Effort
Effort
Energy E = ∫Pdt
Capacity for work
Capacity for work
Capacitance
Mass, inertia
Ambition, aspiration, resoluteness as stored willpower
Inductance
Flexibility
Adaptability to change
Resistance
Damping
Prevarication and wasted effort
To most people a handbag is an object with ‘substance’ (the materials with which it was made) and form with some sense of permanence. To a systems thinker of the type we are describing here a handbag is a process that plays a role in other processes. Put at its simplest, the handbag has a life cycle in which it was conceived, designed, made and used and eventually disposed of. Whatever it was designed to do (function) and whatever form it takes (e.g. as a fashion item) it is unlikely that it was designed to carry an abandoned baby as in the play ‘The Importance of Being Ernest’ by Oscar Wilde premiered in 1895 . Nevertheless in that role or function the handbag played a crucial part in keeping the infant Jack safe and, as revealed as the play unfolds. The handbag was important in his being abandoned, found and rescued and taken into a good family upbringing.
To understand what we mean here when we refer to a process we need to reject all existing preconceptions of what constitutes a process and to create a new and all encompassing definition. So a new process is not just the how of doing as it is often used. It is not just an input being transformed to an output, or a Gantt bar chart, a recipe, a flowchart, a network of an IDEF0 diagram – it is all of these and more.
It is our contention that we can capture everything that we know (model) in processes. A handbag, a kettle, a building, an aeroplane, a power station, an airport terminal and all living things, including human beings, can all be represented as processes. In this way a systems thinker recognises from the start that everything has life cycle. But it is a life cycle that is set in the context of a system containing other processes – some at higher and some at lower levels of definition.
Tony Buzan invented mind maps as a simple tool for thinking through the issues relevant to a problem.
We use them to develop our process models. The technique is actually very simple. Let’s illustrate it here by writing a mind map for becoming a systems thinker based on our axioms. Our top level process – the process we want to execute is Becoming a systems thinker. So we write that proposition at the centre of the diagram. If we think that our axioms are together logically necessary and sufficient for success in the process then they can be added to the diagram as below.
Notice that in every case we use the ‘ing’ form – the present participle to give a sense of process and not just simply a statement or proposition.
Next we show an example of a mind map to develop the processes around the maintenance of a physical system like a highway.
The diagram is for illustration only and is not comprehensive as would be required in practice. Next for each process in the mind map we begin to write down the six important parameters of a process – why, how, who, what, where and when as illustrated above in the table.
To help you begin to see how mind map can be used quite generally across a range of systems below is an illustration of a hierarchy of layers of self-similar process loops as described on our process pages. They are Designing (D), Building (B) and Operating (O).
But these engineering terms (designing, building and operating) can be interpreted more generally and within different contexts. For example in the scientific method we see the conceptual equivalent to designing as conjecturing i.e. creating ideas. In engineering design is creating a new product/system whereas in science creating is conjecturing a new hypothesis or theory. In engineering building is the making of the idea into a physical reality that will be tested as it is developed and then used in practice. In science a hypothesis is tested in an experiment or against some specific criteria to see if it has some confirmation in reality. In engineering operating is using the product/system and finding out if it workd well. In science operating is the wider testing by many people together with its use in practice to find out how well it confirms explanations or predicts new results. Here the theory is evaluated and confirming or falsified. In both engineering and science much is learned from all three phases.
So thinking of the process of engineering designing much more generally we can suggest that in other contexts it is equivalent to sensing, perceiving, specifying, planning, conjecturing or wondering.
Likewise building is equivalent to manufacturing, thinking, reflecting, establishing, making, writing and testing.
And operating is equivalent to acting, using, doing, running, evaluating, experiencing or learning.
In this way we can begin to see how to integrate ideas and systems by synthesising similarities rather than analysing differences.
“Some people who do not possess theoretical knowledge are more effective in action (especially if they are experienced) than others who do possess it.”
Aristotle was referring, in his Nicomachean Ethics, to an attribute called practical wisdom – a quality that many modern engineers have – but our western intellectual tradition has completely lost sight of. I will describe briefly what Aristotle wrote about practical wisdom, argue for its recognition and celebration and state that we need consciously to utilise it as we face up to the uncertainties inherent in the engineering challenges of climate change.
Necessarily what follows is a simplified account of complex and profound ideas. Aristotle saw five ways of arriving at the truth – he called them art (ars, techne), science (episteme), intuition (nous), wisdom (sophia), and practical wisdom – sometimes translated as prudence (phronesis). Ars or techne (from which we get the words art and technical, technique and technology) was concerned with production but not action. Art had a productive state, truly reasoned, with an end (i.e. a product) other than itself (e.g. a building). It was not just a set of activities and skills of craftsman but included the arts of the mind and what we would now call the fine arts. The Greeks did not distinguish the fine arts as the work of an inspired individual – that came only after the Renaissance. So techne as the modern idea of mere technique or rule-following was only one part of what Aristotle was referring to.
Episteme (from which we get the word epistemology or knowledge) was of necessity and eternal; it is knowledge that cannot come into being or cease to be; it is demonstrable and teachable and depends on first principles. Later, when combined with Christianity, episteme as eternal, universal, context-free knowledge has profoundly influenced western thought and is at the heart of debates between science and religion. Intuition or nous was a state of mind that apprehends these first principles and we could think of it as our modern notion of intelligence or intellect. Wisdom or sophia was the most finished form of knowledge – a combination of nous and episteme.
Aristotle thought there were two kinds of virtues, the intellectual and the moral. Practical wisdom or phronesis was an intellectual virtue of perceiving and understanding in effective ways and acting benevolently and beneficently. It was not an art and necessarily involved ethics, not static but always changing, individual but also social and cultural. As an illustration of the quotation at the head of this article, Aristotle even referred to people who thought Anaxagoras and Thales were examples of men with exceptional, marvelous, profound but useless knowledge because their search was not for human goods.
Aristotle thought of human activity in three categories praxis, poeisis (from which we get the word poetry), and theoria (contemplation – from which we get the word theory). The intellectual faculties required were phronesis for praxis, techne for poiesis, and sophia and nous for theoria.
Sculpture of Aristotle at the Louvre Museum. Photo by Eric Gaba, CC-BY-SA-2.5 via Wikimedia Commons
It is important to understand that theoria had total priority because sophia and nous were considered to be universal, necessary and eternal but the others are variable, finite, contingent and hence uncertain and thus inferior.
What did Aristotle actually mean when he referred to phronesis? As I see it phronesis is a means towards an end arrived at through moral virtue. It is concerned with “the capacity for determining what is good for both the individual and the community”. It is a virtue and a competence, an ability to deliberate rightly about what is good in general, about discerning and judging what is true and right but it excludes specific competences (like deliberating about how to build a bridge or how to make a person healthy). It is purposeful, contextual but not rule-following. It is not routine or even well-trained behaviour but rather intentional conduct based on tacit knowledge and experience, using longer time horizons than usual, and considering more aspects, more ways of knowing, more viewpoints, coupled with an ability to generalise beyond narrow subject areas. Phronesis was not considered a science by Aristotle because it is variable and context dependent. It was not an art because it is about action and generically different from production. Art is production that aims at an end other than itself. Action is a continuous process of doing well and an end in itself in so far as being well done it contributes to the good life.
Christopher Long argues that an ontology (the philosophy of being or nature of existence) directed by phronesis rather than sophia (as it currently is) would be ethical; would question normative values; would not seek refuge in the eternal but be embedded in the world and be capable of critically considering the historico-ethical-political conditions under which it is deployed. Its goal would not be eternal context-free truth but finite context-dependent truth. Phronesis is an excellence (arête) and capable of determining the ends. The difference between phronesis and techne echoes that between sophia and episteme. Just as sophia must not just understand things that follow from first principles but also things that must be true, so phronesis must not just determine itself towards the ends but as arête must determine the ends as good. Whereas sophia knows the truth through nous,phronesis must rely on moral virtues from lived experience.
In the 20th century quantum mechanics required sophia to change and to recognise that we cannot escape uncertainty. Derek Sellman writes that a phronimo will recognise not knowing our competencies, i.e. not knowing what we know, and not knowing our uncompetencies, i.e. not knowing what we do not know. He states that a longing for phronesis “is really a longing for a world in which people honestly and capably strive to act rightly and to avoid harm,” and he thinks it is a longing for praxis.
In summary I think that one way (and perhaps the only way) of dealing with the ‘wicked’ uncertainties we face in the future, such as the effects of climate change, is through collaborative ‘learning together’ informed by the recognition, appreciation, and exercise of practical wisdom.
