TtaaPosterSystemThinking
From SPA Wiki
(Poster from OT2001 Session ToTrainAnArchitect)
System-level thinking
- Study non-software systems
- Redesign existing systems
- "Build" systems in simulators
- Knowledge of target platforms
- Reading
- Hands-on
- Characteristic knowledge of problem domain
- Reading
- Talk to experts
- Work on secondment
Annotations
One comment strongly supporting (1) above.
Question for (3) - who builds the simulators?
Comment on (5c) - this takes humility, not often associated with architects.
Commentary
I’m convinced that systems thinking has a huge amount to offer the study and practice of software development. The substantial uptake of lightweight methods such as XP, Adaptive Systems Development, SCRUM and more indicates that the ‘software factory’ approach, with its emphasis on sequential process and transformations not unlike those of the production lines of the 30s onwards, has been rejected - these new methods have a lot more to do with the newer ideas coming out of organisation and management theory, even though at this stage they do not make these links explicit. Watch this space for a forthcoming session at OT2002…
Some of the poster’s points might suggest a familiarity on the part of at least one of the participants with Peter Senge’s influential book The Fifth Discipline, an early application of systems theory to organisational dynamics.
