1- Thinking about expectations:

Learning by experience:
Q: What are the two components of experiencing?
1- The quality of attention that allows me to notice the experience and its components.
2- The memory.
Q: What is meant by Learning?
A: It is what I take away from the experience process that influences my behavior or thinking
in the future.
Q: When do you distinguish Learning as about effective action?
A: When I, or another observer, recognize that I can perform what I was unable to perform
before.

The nature of systems thinking and systems practice:

Q: Where does systems thinking and systems practice arise from?
A: from the particular ways of seeing the world.
Q: What are the important features of systems thinking?

1- It respects complexity; it doesn't pretend it's not there.

2- It attends to the connections between things, events and ideas.
3- It makes complexity manageable by taking a broader perspective, by breaking down
problems into their component parts.
4- It works towards understanding the big picture.
5- It provides tools (mean diagrams, models, and SWOT analysis) for thought and the
opportunity for a powerful way of looking at the world or at the any situation in the real
world.
Q: What is meant by respecting complexity?
1- Accepting that sometimes our understanding is incomplete.
2- Accepting that there is more than one way to understand complexity.
3- Accepting that our view is partial and provisional and other people will have a different
view.
4- Accepting that when experiencing a situation or an issue as complex, we dont always
know whats included in the issue and whats not.
Q: When does complexity become frightening?
A: When we assume that we should be able to solve it.
Q: How does Systems thinking allow us to let go of the notion that "Complexity can be quite
scary"?
A: By allowing us to:
1- Use a multiplicity of interpretations and models to form views and ideas about the
complexity.
2- How to comprehend it.
3- How to act purposefully within.
Q: What does the attention to relationships between things, events and ideas means?
A: It means that I can observe patterns of connection that give rise to larger wholes, which
gives rise to emergence.
Q: Why systems thinking is fundamentally about relationship and process?
1- Because it is often the relationships between things, events and ideas that give them
their meaning.
2- Because it attends to the connections between things, events and ideas.
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 1

3- Because it gives them equal status with the things, events and ideas themselves.
Q: What are the natures of the relationships between a given set of elements?
1- Causal (A causes, leads to, or contributes to, B).
2- Influential (X influences Y and Z).
3- Temporal (P follows Q).
4- Related to embeddedness (M is part of N).
Q: What does thinking systemically about these connections include?
A: It includes being open to recognizing that the patterns of connection are more often weblike than linear chains of connection.
Q: The approach "making complexity manageable by taking a broader perspective" is
powerful for some problems and hopeless for others, Give an example for the hopeless
ones?
A: For example, it now seems clear that climate change induced by human activity is likely to
have major impacts on the planet, its environments, and its living organisms, including
people. But all of these effects are so interdependent it is impossible to discover what the
effects are likely to be by breaking the problem down.
Q: How does Systems thinking make complexity understandable?
A: It characteristically moves one's focus in the opposite direction, working towards
understanding the big picture.
Q: What are the two main drivers of the significant advances in Systems theory During the
1980s and 1990s?
1- The tremendous advance in computing capability.
2- The renewed synergy between biology and Systems.

Appreciating epistemological issues:

Q: What is meant by epistemology?
A: It is the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge and knowing, such as;
1- How do I know about the outside world?
2- How do I know my senses are not fooling me?
3- What constitutes evidence about the world?
Q: What does recognizing that "the world is unknowable as it is" present to you?
A: It presents me with a choice. How do i deal with the day-to-day observations and events
that seem to emerge from it? Each person, once they become aware of this unknowability,
is confronted with, and needs to make their own choice.
Q: What are three main poles that cluster around each choice under the notion "the world is
unknowable"?
1- Adopting a stance that the world is more-or-less as I see it, and to ignore the
incompleteness of my viewpoints and my representations. This is equivalent to saying
there is no epistemological problem about the world as I see it.
2- Deciding that the world is more-or-less as I see it but to recognize that my viewpoint is
limited and the view-from-here may be misleading because it is only partial there is
no view of the roof, to use my previous metaphor. This is a stance that accepts that I
must be careful to explore the world as fully as I can because I cannot see everything
and may be misled trying to account for my own role in my perceptions of the world
3- Taking on fully the implications of the world's unknown-ability. This stance demands
that I always carry awareness that I will never know the world and must therefore
always be.
Q: What are of the mental attitudes you should try to adopt?

Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 2

1. Being open and sensitive to all kinds of information about a situation. Not just so-called
factual information but impressions, intuitions and hunches, including other people's
when they express them.
2. Being willing and able to see the situation from all kinds of points of view in addition to
my own.
3. Being as open as I can be to seeing the situation and not letting my theories,
presuppositions and assumptions tell me how I ought to see it.
4. Not taking terms of reference, boundaries or constraints too seriously by trying to
assume they may not be as rigid as they seem to be.
5. Trying to find out how other people see the constraints and boundaries.
6. Being wary of any solution to a complex question (including my own solutions).
7. Enjoying diversity and complexity in a situation; resisting the temptation to discard
inconvenient bits of information; paying more, rather than less, attention to awkward
facts, impressions or ideas.
8. Not minding too much if there are areas of uncertainty in my understanding, or bits of
information I don't have; being skeptical about the facts I do have.
Q: What are the things that you can include in your thinking about a complex situation?
1. The preceding history and the wider context of the situation.
2. Information about how people (including you) involved in the situation feel about it;
what are the hunches, intuitions and suspicions they, and you, have about it.
3. Information about the dynamics (procedures, flows, communications, feelings) of the
situation as well as the structure (roles, organization framework, boundaries, materials,
components) and how the process and structure fit together.
4. Information about how the situation appears to other people, including those around
the situation as well as those directly involved.
5. Attention to what is not going on and what is not present.

2- Experiencing complexity:
Q: What are the objectives of using diagrams in systems case-study work?
1. A powerful tool to analyze a situation and helps us to understand how complex system
work.
2. Help in dealing with complex materials, content and getting organized.
3. Represent our understanding and ideas in simple and easy way.
4. Explore our capabilities, opinions, thoughts.
5. Diagrams are just like words, through them, we can see others ideas and we get a
vision of what theyre trying to say and what theyre trying to achieve.
6. The idea of drawing a diagram is like we are trying to visually represent our
understanding and ideas.
7. Highlights certain information and relationship between ideas in the situation that are
not visible in text.
8. Diagram enables us to explore our understanding in a dynamic way and enables you to
identify patterns of interconnection.
9. The diagram is like a captured piece of your understanding of the complexity.
Q: What are the overall objectives of using diagrams in systems case-study work?
A: Overall, diagrams help in clarifying your thinking because they summarize complex
situations allowing you to see complexity and individual components and their
relationships. They also give new visions and ideas in a certain situation by letting you think
carefully about the components and their connections to each other helping you to learn
more effectively.
Q: What are the main outcomes you expect from a Rich Picture diagram?
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 3

A: It allows you to have the whole of the situation spread out in front of you. You can see all
the components, events, facts, values, opinions and emotions expressed by all the
stakeholders.
Q: What are the five traps of the rich picture?
1. Representing the problem not the situation: Does the rich picture represent the
situation or is it just my interpretation of what the problem is? Does it include all the
features noted as problematic?
2. The Impoverished rich picture: not include everything seem important to or related to
the situation. To avoid this trap is to ask: Have I included everything I know about the
situation in my representation of it?
3. Including my own analyses, interpretations and structuring: is this rich picture
telling just one story or is it rich enough to suggest lots of stories about whats going on?
4. Words and wordiness: Too many words this can reduce the richness of the picture. To
check the avoiding of this trap is to ask: Do I have to do a lot of reading to see the
relationships between elements in the picture?
5. The final version trap: assuming the rich picture is finished or it is the final version. To
avoid this trap is to ask: Have I had any new insights about the complex situation since I
last added something to this picture.
Q: What are the main outcomes you expect from a System map diagram?
A: Systems map diagram will clarify structures and relationships between structural entities in
the situation. They allow you to structure features of a situation in a number of different
ways.
Q: what are the processes of drowning a system map?
1. A system of interest is one that a system
thinker chooses to focus their interest on.
2. Find the purpose: because in complex
situation we find the mess has arisen
because somewhere at some time some had
a purpose, tried to achieve it, but their
intention got lost in the unintended
consequences of what they did. The question
to use for identify the purpose, what
components exist, who brought them, and
why.
3. Drawing a system map: drawing effective
system map lies in finding appropriate
balance. The balance lies somewhere
between the learning, which comes from the
process of drawing the maps, and the use I
might make of the end product.
4. Boundary: represent a boundary between a
system and its environment.
Q: What are the main outcomes you expect from Influence diagram?
1. It will clarify the dynamic relationship between events, effects and structure.
Q: What are characteristics of Influence diagram?
1. It looks to Interconnectedness as another way of structuring complexity.
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 4

2. In the influence diagram we search for interconnection in the form of influence to hold
together a structure that resolves some of complexity.
3. There are two way of looking for influence connection;
a. Start from system map; modify it and adapting to identify the principle
interconnections.
b. Start by identifying the component of the complexity that seem to be influential and
building the influence diagram from there.
Q: What are the main outcomes you expect from Multiple Cause diagram?
A: Drawing multiple-cause diagrams allows for the identification of systems of causation. Such
a system can be pictured as an interconnected group of events or effects; the effect is of a
system that behaves as if its purpose were to cause other events and effects.
Q: What are characteristics of Multiple Cause diagram?
1. It is useful in investigating.
2. It uses the interconnectedness as means to looking for causation.
3. Allow you to explore the origins of particular events or effects.
4. If one input cause is removed, the output effects continue to happen because feedback
loop are present or there are other causes that lead to effects.
5. The power of multiple cause diagram consider as a heart of any complexity.
Q: What are the main outcomes you expect from Control model diagram?
A: It allows you to explore what is needed if a system is to fulfill its purpose.

Q: What are characteristics of Control model diagram?

1. Useful in investigating purpose and the means to achieve it.
2. Provide a structure for exploring the question what X trying to achieve, and how they
do it, and how they know they done it.
3. Allow to decide whether the elements are in place to support the achievement of the
purpose and whether if they are the right element.
4. If the control does not work well, it is because the system is not connected together or
some of the elements are mess matched.
5. The output from the control model is description of the reason for its failure to effect
the transformation, or achieve the purpose it was meant to achieve.
Q: What are the main outcomes you expect from Sign graph diagram?
A: It will show something about sensitivities between variables.
Q: What are characteristics of Sign graph diagram?
1. Not usually use to structure the understanding of the complexity which makes set less
useful in the task of searching for system within the complex situation.
2. They can help to sort out how and why variable in the system change so first we should
identify variables either from text or rich picture.
3. A sign graph would help to discover the influences that would increase the amount of
contribution collected and those that decrease the contributions.

3- Understanding systems approaches to managing complexity

A: What are the four balls a system practitioner must juggle?
1. B: Being a practitioner with a particular tradition of understanding
2. E: Engaging with the real world situation
3. C: Contextualizing a particular approach to a new situation
4. M: Managing your involvement in the situation.
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 5

Q: What are the main skills of system practitioner?

1.
To learn through experience.
2.
To manage the relationship between approach and real world.
3.
Adopting approach.
Q: As a system practitioner, what does "Being" mean to you?
1. It is understanding situation and be aware about it.
2. I see the situation, which are in front of me and immerse myself, as I am part of it.
3. It Refer to our awareness and our ethics of action and responsibility.
Q: How does practitioner engages in a situation?
A: This depends on his background, the experience of being the practitioner.
Q: As a system practitioner, what does "Engaging" mean to you?
1. Engaging mean from my experience I will see how the situation look like to me if it is
complex or messy.
2. Real world could be experience as simple or complicated or as situation or as system.
So how I concern or engage with it I will see situation.
Q: As a system practitioner, what does "Contextualizing" mean to you?
1. Contextualizing mean from my skills learning through experience how I'm going to deal
with the situation.
2. It means, also, how to put system practitioner approaches into context (contextualizing)
for taking action in the real world.
Q: As a system practitioner, what does "Managing" mean to you?
A: To start managing my situation and see my performance and deal with the situation as a
system practitioner and start find solutions.

Being a systems practitioner

Q: State the activity-sequence of "being" a system
practitioner?
1. Some of the special features of being human
include consciousness, language, emotions and
the capacity to reason or rationalize.
2. Review modeling in the modeling pack
3. Being aware of the constraints and possibilities
of the observer.
4. Appreciating your basis for understanding by:
a. Distinguish between history and tradition.
b. Distinguish between systemic and systematic
thinking and action.
5. Being ethical.
6. Reviewing some implications for practice of
juggling the "Being".
Q: What is Kolbs model used for? Draw it stating with
experience.

Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 6

A: The model experiential learning used as a conceptual basis for the design of all sorts of
processes from curricula to consultancies, and it is powerful model.

Q: Distinguish between systemic thinking and systematic thinking?

Systemic thinking
Systematic thinking
( )
( )
1 Concern with whole and said that they The whole can be understood by considering
emerge from their parts.
parts by linear cause-effect mechanisms.
2 Boundaries of systems are determined System exists as concrete entities.
by
perspectives
of
those
who
participate in formulating them. The
result is a system of interest.
3 Combine individual perspectives which perspective is not important
provide multiple partial perspectives.
4 Systems are characterized by feedback. Analysis is linear
5 Systems cannot be understood by Situation can be understood by step by step
analysis of the component of part, but analysis
understood
by
studying
the
interconnections
6 Concentrate on basic principles of Concentrates on basic building blocks.
organization.
7 Contextual
Analytical
8 Concerned with process
Concerned with entities and properties
9 The properties of the whole system are The system can be reconstructed after
destroyed when the system is divided
studying the components
Q: explain the difference between systemic and
Systemic Action
1 The espoused role and the action of the
decision maker is very much part of an
interacting ecology of system.
2
3

4
5

systematic actions?
Systematic Action
The espoused role of the decision maker as a
central theme, the decision maker claims to
be objective and outside the system being
studied.
Ethics
are
perceived
as
being Ethics and value are not integrated into the
multileveled as are the levels of change process.
systems themselves.
It is interaction of the practitioner and The system being studied is seen as open
the system of interest with its context system, but intervention is performed as
that is the main focus of exploration closed system
and change.
Perception and action are based on Perception and action are based on real
experience of the world.
world.
Explore the tradition of understanding
in which the practitioner is immersed

Traditions of understanding may not be

questioned and the methods of analysis may
be evaluated.
Q: give a suitable example of systemic actions?
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 7

A: When the doctor tells his patient that he or she has a systemic lupus or a systemic infection
then this means that the patient is experiencing a generalized infection all throughout the
entirety of his or her body. The entire system (the human body) is affected thats why the
case is already systemic. This also implies that the health prognosis is poor because the
infection has spread.
Q: give a suitable example of systematic actions?
A: If you have a consistent method of cleaning the bedroom first, followed by the living room
and lastly the dining room then more or less you can be described as cleaning your house
systematically
Q: What are the main ways you need to be self-aware as a practitioner?
Q: What are the advantages of each way of awareness? Q: What are the traps if you do not
have self-aware?
Way of being aware
Advantages
Potential traps when
missing
1. By attempting to surface
your
traditions
of
understanding so that you
can be aware of the choices
you make in tracking your
practice.
2. By refining, you become
epistemologically aware, and
able to think and act
systemically
or
systematically.

3. By
appreciating
the
constraints & possibilities of
the observer & how this
awareness questions
the
commonly accepted notion
of objectivity & replaces it
with that of responsibility
4. By seeking to embody your
systems thinking in practice

5. By
adding
an
ethical
dimension to your work.

Knowing what theory

informs your practice,
choosing new theoretical
frameworks is available.

Increase the choices you

have as a practitioner,
alter your approach from
describing
system
to
designing
system
of
interest.

Avoid mistaken reliance

on objectivity.
Enables
a
richer
appreciation of what is
involved
in
human
communication.

More
able
to
contextualize
your
practice.
You
appreciate
the
history of the situation in
which you are practicing.
Increase
the
choices
available to stakeholder.

Your actions are restricted to

the theoretical rather than
form praxis (combining theory
and practice).

You take responsibility for

others
without
their
agreement.

You remain unaware of your

own prejudices.
You have theories that are not
suited to the context.

Conflict
(including
passive
aggression) arises when your
truth claim perspective is
asserted over someone else's.
Collaborative action is more
difficult.
Avoid taking responsibility for
actions.
Avoid being ethical.

Q: How can a system practitioner be ethical?

1. Ethics within systemic practice are perceived as operating on multiple levels (ex: like
the system concept of hierarchy, what we perceive to be good at one level might be
bad at another).
2. Ethics and value within systematic practice are not addressed as a central theme
unless the practitioner is aware of the choice they are making, since the choices made
have ethical implication. If there is no awareness, they are not integrated into the
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 8

change process because the practitioner or researcher takes an objective stance that
excludes ethical considerations.
3. The ethical is always tried to act to increase the number of choices available, since, the
more freedom ones has, the more choices he has, & the better chance that people will
take responsibility for their own actions.

Engaging with complexity:

Q: State the activity-sequence of "Engaging" with
complexity?
1. Clear your appreciation of complexity.
2. Experiencing complexity as mess or difficulty.
3. Exploring complexity, "where is the complexity?
What is it?"
4. Choosing to distinguish between complex
situations and complex systems
5. Appreciating some implications for engaging with
a situation regarded as "mess, difficulty, complex
or simple system".
Q: What are the three features a practitioner might use to distinguish a mess from a difficulty?
1. Messes are made up from a network of problems and opportunities that will be described
differently by different people engaged in the situation; what is a problem for one person
may be an opportunity for another. By contrast a difficulty will be described much the
same, even from a diversity of perspectives.
2. The improvement in a mess is not just the sum of the improvements in its component
parts. The improvements in a difficulty are easier to identify and describe and it is easier
to identify how they came about.
3. Because a mess is a set of external conditions that causes dissatisfaction, a judgment
about whether or not it has been improved, and by how much will depend upon the
perspective of the observer. The improvement in a difficulty will be generally agreed upon
by observers from any perspective.
Q: Is any one of these distinguishing features more significant than the other?
A: To deal with messes requires a holistic or systems approach; therefore it makes little sense
to distinguish one feature as more important than another. A core concept at the heart of
the idea of mess is, however, that of emergence, meaning the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts.

Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 9

Q: State some features of messes and difficulties according to Ackoffs points?

1. A problem or an opportunity is an ultimate element abstract from a mess.
2. Problems or opportunities do not exist in isolation, although it is possible to isolate them
conceptually.
3. A mess may comprise both problems and opportunities; what is a problem for one person
may be an opportunity for another.
4. No mess can be solved by solving each of its components problems / opportunities
independently of the others because no mess can be decomposed into independent
components.
5. Simple situations do exist that can be improved by extracting one problem from them
and solving it. These are called difficulties.
Q: What is Russell Ackoff view of the system?
A: Russell Ackoff claimed for a set of elements to be usefully viewed as a system, it was
necessary that:
1. The behavior of each element of the set should have an effect on the behavior of the
whole set.
2. The behavior of the elements, and their effects on the whole set, should be
interdependent.
3. However subgroups of the elements are formed, each subgroup should have the same
effect on the behavior of the whole and none should be completely independent.
Q: What is Schoderbeck description of the complexity?
A: Schoderbeck described the complexity of what they regarded as a real or physical
system as arising from the interaction of:
1. The number of elements comprising the system, for example, the number of chips on a
circuit board.
2. The attributes of the specified elements of the system.
3. The number of interactions among the specified elements of the system, for example,
the number of neuronal connections in the brain.
4. The degree of organization inherent in the system, Ex. the social arrangements in a
beehive or an ants nest.
Q: What are the differences between simple system, complex (hard) system and complex
(hard) adaptive system?
Simple systems
Complex systems
Complex adaptive
systems
Have predictable behavior;
Generate counterintuitive
The elements of a system
e.g. a fixed interest bank
can change themselves.
behavior (full of
account.
surprises); e.g. lower taxes
and interest rate leading to
higher unemployment.
Few
interactions
and Large array of variables with Complex outcomes results
feedback or feed forward many interactions and
from few simple rules.
loops; e.g. a simple barter feedback or feed forward
economy with few goods loops;
and services.

Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 10

Centralized decision
making; e.g. power is
concentrated among a few
decision makers.
Decomposable

Decentralized decision
making

irreducible

Small changes can have big

effects and large changes
may have no effects.
Thrive on tension and
paradox.

Q: For each of the following situations, decide whether it is best considered as a mess or a difficulty?

1. The group that runs a local orchestra continually argues about whether they should

stick with popular classics or venture into more difficult and less popular pieces. (M)
2. Joan wants to send a computer file to Ray, but they use incompatible types of computer

software. (D)
3. Jack is buying a new car and his most important criterion for choice is fuel economy. (D)
4. An environment agency has legislative responsibility for controlling pollution but the

fines imposed on polluters are minimal. (M)

Contextualizing systems approaches:

Q: Discuss in brief the Contextualizing in BECM process.
A: Contextualizing means from my skills learning through experience how I'm going to deal
with the situation. How to put approaches into context (contextualizing) for taking action in
the real world?
Q: What does the phrase putting into context describes?
A: It describes the process of contextualization involved in the choice of approach. An aware
practitioner is able to contextualize a different collection of methods at their disposal to
create an opportunity for a greater range of advantageous changes in the real world
situation.
Q: What is the challenge for the system practitioner?
A: It is to be able to engage in double learning. "Learning about the domain and learning
about the approach to the domain as well as juggling the other balls BECM".
Q: What are the main skills of system practitioner in order to contextualize system
approaches?
1. To learn through experience.
2. To manage the relationship between approach and real world.
3. Adopting approach.
Q: What is meant by "approach"?
A: An approach is a way of going about taking action in a real world situation.
Q: What are system approaches?
The choices can be made for coping with complexity is to approach the world systemically
using system thinking.
Everyday ways we use adjectives to describe the world approach. Some that come to
mind are:
1- Scientific approach.
2- Reductionist approach. 3- Empirical approach.
4Critical approach.
5- Philosophical approach
6- Experimental approach.
7- Spiritual approach.
8. Practical approach.
Some of these approaches to taking action seem to operate at different levels - both
systems and science could be seen as meta-disciplines and different approaches could be
taken in both by an aware practitioner.
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 11

Systemic & a systematic approach can be encompassed within a system approach, by an

aware practitioner.

Q: What are the three categories / groups (or the nine conditions) for assessing the adequacy
of design of any system of interest, according to churchman?
A: Churchman has identified nine conditions for assessing the adequacy of design of any
system of interest, he identifies these condition into three groups:
Motivation
Control
Expertise
1 System
is System
has
teleological System has a designer who
teleological.
components
which
co- influences the decision maker.
produce the measure of
performance of system
2 System
has
a System has an environment
The designer aims to maximize
measure
of
system's value to the client.
performance.
3 There is a client System has a decision maker There is a built in guarantee that
whose interests are who can produce change in the purpose of system defined by
served by system.
the measure of performance the designer's notion of the
of system's components.
measure of performance can be
achieved and secured.
Q: As system practitioners, why we need to identify the purpose is an important process?
1. Particular actions will differ from observer to observer because of their different
perspectives, which arise from their traditions of understanding.
2. A systems practitioner must adopt different stakeholders' perspectives.
3. Even if we do not ascribe purposes to our own actions, another observer may infer our
purposes by observing our actions and their outcomes.
4. To managing purposeful and purposive differences.
Q: What is meant by purposeful behavior? Give an example.
A: It means a behavior that is willed, there is some sense of voluntary action. In other words; I
will do it because it will be useful and benefit for me.
Example: A group of friends who eat together regularly at the local pub are enthusiastic
about football and decide rather than just watching and talking about it they will form their
own team. This they do. (willed action).
Q: What is meant by purposeful behavior? Give an example.
A: It means behaviors to which an observer can attribute purpose following the logic of the
purposeful, system that can be seen to have an imposed purpose that they seek to achieve
are called purposive systems. I will in force to do it to achieve what I want even I not like to
do it.
Example: A manager sees that there are that are not satisfied with the after-sales support,
as a result, he imposes on us to change our ways of operating even though we think
differently. (It is an imposed action).
Q: What is meant by purposeful systems?
A: They are systems that can be seen to articulate their own purposes as well as seek them.
This system cant be controlled as well known its results. Within this system, people can
pursue the same purpose.
Q: What is meant by Purposive systems?
A: They are systems that can be seen to have an imposed purpose that they seek to achieve.
This system can be controlled and known its results.
Q: What are differences between 'hard' and 'soft' traditions of system thinking: systemic and
systematic actions?
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 12

The hard systems thinking

The soft systems thinking tradition
tradition
Systematic approach.
Systemic approach
2 Oriented to goal seeking.
Oriented to learning.
3 Assume the world contains system that Assume the world is problematical by can be
can be engineered.
explored by using system models.
4 Assume system models to be models of Assume system models to be intellectual
the world.
constructs.
5 Talks the language of problem and Talks the language of issue and
solution.
accommodations.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of the hard systems thinking tradition?
1. Advantages Allows the use of powerful techniques.
2. Disadvantages May lose touch with aspects beyond the logic of the problem
situation.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of the soft systems thinking tradition?
1. Advantages Is available to all stakeholders including professional practitioner.
2. Disadvantages Does not produce the final answer and it accepts that inquiry is
never-ending.
Q: Describe how, if, the given situation exemplifies the process of contextualizing:
Ahmed has just finished a systems course at University. Most of his colleagues at work are
not really interested in these ideas and dont really understand them but he found a lot of
the tools useful in thinking about his situation. Because of this, he has sometimes
suggested using a particular systems diagramming tool when he thought his colleagues
would be receptive to the idea.
A: As a ware practitioner Ahmed should focus on the thinking that enables him to use the right
tools, techniques and methods in the right context for effecting action. This occurs by some
steps:
1. Describing the system approach.
2. How the system approach relates to purposeful behavior on the part of the practitioner.
3. Distinguish between tools, techniques, methods.
4. The process that Ahmed will use is to ask: what experiences did individuals or groups
have that led them to develop particular system approaches for managing complexity?
5. Finally, the proper approach used in contextualizing in the real world.
Q: What is meant by "a method" in systems thinking? Give an example.
A: It is a systematic procedure, technique, or inquiry employed by or proper to particular
discipline or art. It is also known as a systematic procedure, technique, of doing something.
Example: If a practitioner engages with a method and follows it, like a recipe or an
instructions manual for assembling something, regardless of the situation then it remains
method.
Q: What is meant by "Methodology" in systems thinking? Give an example.
A: It is a body of methods, rules employed by a discipline; it can be adopted by a particular
user in a participatory situation.
Example: If the method is not regarded as a formula but as, guidelines to process, and the
practitioner takes responsibility for learning from the process, it can become methodology.
Q: What is meant by "Tools" in systems thinking? Give an example.
A: Within systems practice, a tool is usually something abstract, such as a diagram, used in
carrying out a tracking down, affecting a purpose, or facilitating an activity.
Example: a system map is considered as a tool; with practice it becomes a technique.
Q: What is meant by "Technique" in systems thinking? Give an example.
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 13

A: Technique is concerned with both the skill and the ability of doing or achieving something
and the manner of its completion, such as drawing a diagram in a prescribed manner.
Example: would be drawing a systems map to a specified set of conventions. Checking
personal reactions and investments in situations. In use, it could be a method or it could
become incorporated into a methodology.
Q: What are the Types of Systems Methods?
1- Hard system method (HSM).
2- Soft system method (SSM).
3- Viable system model (VSM).
4- Open University systems failures
method.
5- Systems dynamics.
6- The Critical system thinking (CST).
Q: What are the characteristics of hard system method (HSM)?
A: It could be taught as dealing with aspects of decision making that are designed to prevent
problems and messes from occurring and also recognizing opportunities and seizing them
in an optimal way. The HS-method does not take this explicitly into account.
Q: What are the characteristics of Soft system method (SSM)?
A: It is essentially an investigation and design method. SS-method gives effective guidelines
that might be expected to bring about improvements in a problem situation. It offers a high
probability of improving things, but has no test of optimality.
Q: What are the characteristics of viable system model (VSM)?
A: Viable system model: (software package called Viplan) shifting from goal-seeking (Hard) to
soft systems.
Q: What are the characteristics of Open University systems failures method?
A: Their motivation was to discover the ways failures in organizations can best be understood.
They observe that one of the best ways people learn is from their mistakes.
Q: What are the characteristics of Systems dynamics method?
A: building a computer simulation model to describe the behavior of any particular system
under study, followed by experimentation with the model in order to derive suitable policy
options for modifying the behavior of the real system.
Q: What are the characteristics of the Critical system thinking (CST)?
A: It is regarded as a system approach to research and intervention in complex situation. CST
it is argued, is a debate within the system research community around three themes:
1. Critical awareness is a process that involves boundary critique by considering in
formalized ways the question of where and by whom boundary judgments around
system of interest are made. This involves examining and reexamining taken-forgranted assumptions.
2. Improvement is defined temporarily and locally, taking issues of power into account. It
is argued that critical awareness is required to surface different viewpoints in any
attempts at purposeful action.
3. Methodological pluralism uses a variety of systems methods that are flexible, dynamic
and locally decidable.

Managing complexity:
Q: What is meant by System?
A: A simple definition of a system is an assembly of components interconnected as if they
had a purpose. The components are affected by being the system and the behavior of the
system is changed if they leave it
Q: What is meant by System of interest?
A: A system of interest is one that a systems thinker chooses to focus their interest on.
Q: What are the seven factors that increased the relevance of system thinking to policy
making and to the function of government (Geoff Mulgan)
A: Geoff Mulgan identified seven factors that increased the relevance of systems thinking to
policy making and to the functions of government. These were:
Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 14

1. The expansion of information flows, especially within government itself.

2. Pressure on social policy to be more holistic.
3. The growing importance of the environment, especially climate change.
4. Connectedness of system brings new vulnerabilities.
5. Globalization and the ways in which this integrates previously discrete system.
6. Need for ability to cope with ambiguity and non-linearity.
7. Planning and rational strategy.
Q: When a systems practitioner can call a system "complex"?
A: When he tries to make sense of it using systems thinking and found, or formulated, a
system of interest within it.
Q: Who can we explore complexity (become familiar with the complexity)?
1. We must look for systems or elements of systems. Then we use the systems to
understand the situation.
2. Consolidating our previous understanding of systems.
3. Acquiring skills to assess the quality of our own diagrams.
Q: What are the characteristics of managing complexity?
1. Have a stake in the issue "an interest".
2. Need a purpose for engaging with the real world situation.
3. Fundamental choice faces both systems theorists and complexity theorists is choosing
to see system or complexity either
4. As something that exists and can be discovered, measured, modeled, manipulated,
maintained or predicted
5. As something we construct, design, or experience in relationship to something, event,
situation, or issue because of the distinctions or theories we embody.
6. Complexity is a property of something.
7. Complexity refers to the condition of the universe, which is too rich and varied for us to
understand in simple, common mechanistic or linear ways.
8. Complexity is something we experience, so what is complex will differ depending on
who is experiencing.
9. Complexity 'something' is used to describe a new way of thinking about the world, a
new paradigm.
10.Complexity deal with the nature of emergence, innovation, learning and adaptation.
11.Complexity is an organizing adjective result in different metaphor.
Q: Why does diagramming a complex situation in very important tool for a systems
practitioner?
1. The essence of using diagrams is captured in the idea of getting to grips with complexity.
2. Producing a diagram enables us to explore our understanding in a dynamic way and
enables you to identify patterns of interconnection.
3. The diagram is like a captured piece of our understanding of the complexity.
4. They allow the system practitioner to impose some structure on complex, and possibly
problematic, situation.
5. Variation between diagrams will be in terms of perspectives, or they will explore different
aspect of situation.
6. The system map will illuminate structures and relationships between structural entities in
the situation.
7. The influence diagram and multiple cause diagrams will illuminate the dynamic
relationship between events, effects and structure.
8. The sign graphs will show something about sensitivities between variables.

Done by: Abdulrahman Alenazi ( )(, Saudi Brunch

Page 15