D1. Combining Reductionist and Holistic

combining ReDucTioni’re doing what you’re doing. To begin, we discuss two different ways of thinking about what ‘system thinking’ really is, then we talk about how you can plan for transitioning a system, and why we’re making the roadmaps the way we do, and finally, we close with some general tips for system optimization before we head to the more practical SiD method chapter.

From the SiD Book

One of the purposes of systems thinking is to be able to analyze the nature of systems and derive meaningful conclusions from them. Understanding system dynamics and their consequences is a nice start, but a clear analysis structure helps tremendously in wading through what may seem an impossible task at first. Knowing that numbers can take us only so far doesn’t make the job of working with systems any easier. We found that by approaching the system from three specific aspects, you gain a comprehensive foothold for insight. These three aspects are thinking through dimensions, thinking through scales, and thinking in the full spectrum. The three aspects can be written as follows: Analyzing in all dimensions when trying to understand the system: A. Map the system in space B. Map the system ...