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Title: Systems Thinking, Systems Practice: Includes a 30-Year Retrospective by Peter Checkland ISBN: 0-471-98606-2 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 16 September, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: Where it all began...
Comment: Well, since I've been on a bit of a 'systems' binge lately, I might as well review this old gem...
Checkland's book was the first to introduce the differentiation between 'soft' and 'hard' systems analysis. Soft analysis is much more akin to a general, somewhat philosophical approach to the methodology whereas hard analysis is the development of usable engineering models.
First off, this book is actually two books - the first is a fairly long paper that neatly sums up the systems approach over the 30 years it has been explored. The consensus? Things looked really promising at the beginning but unfortunately the approach simply got hung up on the very thing it was trying to escape: science's current preoccupation with reductionism. That is, the hard systems approach attracted the most attention and it quickly succumbed to the very trap it sought to escape starting with its use of rigidly-defined symbols right up to the detailed diddling with mathematical models that, similar to earlier approaches, did not model reality at all due to assumptions and oversimplification.
Checkland is much more interested in the soft approach and he consistently laments the fact that systems methodology is not being taught even though it holds so much promise to solving many of our pressing problems. The overview presses this point home and should be required reading for anyone in management or engineering.
The second section, the original book with a few revisions, is still very relevant. Checkland's focus, soft systems, never was given a chance given our preoccupation with reductionism. Given the recent failures of reductionism, particularly the genome-mapping fiasco, cast systems theory in new light.
Checkland starts out with an excellent overview of the history of science from a (mostly) philosophical perspective. This very readable overview leads directly into his discussion of the history and early development of systems theory. He then focuses on systems methodology (soft systems theory) with some general applications.
The approach is very readable and should be easily understood by anyone - in fact, Checkland stresses the importance of having a wide base of knowledge to help solve real-world problems and points out that much work has been done by people who 'migrated' from other fields. Smuts, one of the pioneers, was actually a politician and only wrote a systems book after losing an election...
It is unfortunate that there are no references to Robert Rosen here since his work, more of a 'hard' approach to systems theory, fully supports Checkland's ideas. In fact, there is a lot of material that should be included as 'backup' for why the systems approach is important as a new direction away from reductionism. Perlovsky's work in cybernetics, Jopling's recent work on self-knowledge, Prigogine's work in thermodynamics and even Kauffman's attempts in biology now point to hypotheses that are only compatible with a systems methodology.
This book, as mentioned above, should be required reading these days. Certainly for anyone contemplating management or engineering it is a very important reference. In fact, the book could basically be used in high-school with a bit of help from Weinberg's systems books. For those looking for more application-specific information I recommend von Bertalanffy's original, Rosen's work, and perhaps a side helping of Weinberg and Gharajedaghi for more ideas.
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Title: The Fifth Discipline by Peter M. Senge ISBN: 0385260954 Publisher: Currency Pub. Date: 01 October, 1994 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Web of Life : A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems by Fritjof Capra ISBN: 0385476760 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 15 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time by Ervin Laszlo ISBN: 1572730536 Publisher: Hampton Pr Pub. Date: June, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Statistics A User Friendly Guide (Especially for the Mathematically Challenged) by Gerald C. Swanson ISBN: 0972458905 Publisher: GreyHeron Press Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications by Ludwig, Von Bertalanffy, Ludwig Von Bartalanffy, Ludwig Von Bertalanffy ISBN: 0807604534 Publisher: George Braziller Pub. Date: March, 1976 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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