systems-thinking

Conway’s Law:

«[O]rganizations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.»

— Melvin E. Conway, How Do Committees Invent?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law

Sociotechnical Engineering: Revolutionize how your teams work! Discover the secrets to blending people and technology for peak performance and innovation. Read more! #SociotechnicalEngineering #TechSystems #FutureOfWork #SystemsThinking #ITManagement

https://teguhteja.id/sociotechnical-engineering-unlock-better-work-systems/

Jakub Jurkiewicz and I have been talking for a while about creating an event that feels a little different — less about broadcasting ideas, and more about building them together.

We’re calling it BEACON

It’s a one-day event for technical leaders
Talks in the morning to spark ideas
An unconference in the afternoon to go deeper, together

Theme: sustainable evolution — thoughtful, ongoing change in teams and systems

When: 13th October 2025
Where: Auckland

The event will be catered and ticketed (price TBC)
We’re adding to the ecosystem with something more participatory.

If you’re curious, add your email here:
https://forms.gle/KcFvGyESGbU8w6Wr7

Please boost for reach

#TechLeadership #systemsThinking
#Aoteaora #tamakimakarau #newZealand

PDF #SystemsThinking https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/114731684691493053

Just published something I’ve wrestled with for months:
Neo-Superdeterminism: Understanding Choice in a Causally Closed Universe.

If causality is closed, what becomes of choice, ethics, design?

For those who feel the weight of freedom — and wonder if its collapse might be a kind of liberation.

Read: https://philpapers.org/archive/MENNUC.pdf

#superdeterminism #freewill #philosophy #ethics #causalclosure
#agency #designethics #systemsthinking #existentialism #writinginpublic

Functional detachment... in an age of Systemic disintegration:

In an era saturated with information yet starved of wisdom, there exists a cognitive threshold - quietly crossed - where the accumulation of knowledge ceases to be empowering and becomes corrosive.

This state, which may be termed functional detachment, arises when the mind, confronted by the scale of systemic contradiction, undergoes a silent rupture. It is not a breakdown. It is the consequence of seeing too clearly.

To live in modern society is to endure a relentless dissonance. One must accept ecological destruction as progress, political corruption as governance, economic exploitation as growth, and curated illusion as truth.

Institutions meant to protect and inform instead obscure and mislead. Even language is repurposed.. weaponised to conceal intent and maintain power. Under such conditions, clarity becomes a burden.

Functional detachment is not apathy or despair. It is the body’s refusal to participate in cognitive and moral falsehoods that no longer reconcile. It begins with hyper-systemic awareness: the capacity to perceive not isolated failures but the interwoven dysfunction of economic, ecological, social, and informational domains. Solutions address symptoms, not causes. Narratives conceal the logic of their own reproduction. Institutions demand submission to illusion.

This state is glimpsed across disciplines. In psychology, it resembles dissociation under extreme stress. In philosophy, it evokes existential nausea.. a collapse of meaning structures. In systems theory, it mirrors epistemic crisis: the moment when contradiction overwhelms coherence.

Society does not accommodate such awareness. It pathologises it.. calling it cynicism, dysfunction, or pessimism. But this is a reversal. The dysfunction lies not in the individual who detaches from corrupted systems but in the systems that demand complicity in contradiction.

Yet if left unexamined, functional detachment risks hardening into paralysis. Seeing everything as broken can neutralise dissent and isolate those who see. The task is not to restore belief in collapsing structures but to build new modes of orientation. Not to rejoin the spectacle, but to stand outside it and create new forms of sense-making, connection, and resistance.

This requires a cognitive ethic:

One that embraces truth without collapsing into nihilism.
One that accepts decay without mistaking it for destiny.
One that sees clearly - and acts anyway.

To live lucidly now is to reject complicity. Not to retreat into apathy, but to cultivate strategic clarity. Functional detachment is not an end. It is a threshold.. the beginning of a post-illusion life.

From here, one does not retreat. One reorients.

I fraking LOVE systems thinking and theory, emergence and procedural generation, and system design.

Im sitting in my local library with a book (borrowed via inter-library loan) about game design ("Advanced Game Design", Sellers 2018) and it starts with a lot of unpacking of systems thinking.

The responsibility of the observer extends through time. Ethics is primarily oriented toward the future.
#cybernetics #ethics #SystemsThinking

The educator panic over AI is real, and rational.
I've been there myself. The difference is I moved past denial to a more pragmatic question: since AI regulation seems unlikely (with both camps refusing to engage), how do we actually work with these systems?

The "AI will kill critical thinking" crowd has a point, but they're missing context.
Critical reasoning wasn't exactly thriving before AI arrived: just look around. The real question isn't whether AI threatens thinking skills, but whether we can leverage it the same way we leverage other cognitive tools.

We don't hunt our own food or walk everywhere anymore.
We use supermarkets and cars. Most of us Google instead of visiting libraries. Each tool trade-off changed how we think and what skills matter. AI is the next step in this progression, if we're smart about it.

The key is learning to think with AI rather than being replaced by it.
That means understanding both its capabilities and our irreplaceable human advantages.

1/3

AI isn't going anywhere. Time to get strategic:
Instead of mourning lost critical thinking skills, let's build on them through cognitive delegation—using AI as a thinking partner, not a replacement.

This isn't some Silicon Valley fantasy:
Three decades of cognitive research already mapped out how this works:

Cognitive Load Theory:
Our brains can only juggle so much at once. Let AI handle the grunt work while you focus on making meaningful connections.

Distributed Cognition:
Naval crews don't navigate with individual genius—they spread thinking across people, instruments, and procedures. AI becomes another crew member in your cognitive system.

Zone of Proximal Development
We learn best with expert guidance bridging what we can't quite do alone. AI can serve as that "more knowledgeable other" (though it's still early days).
The table below shows what this looks like in practice:

2/3

Critical reasoning vs Cognitive Delegation

Old School Focus:

Building internal cognitive capabilities and managing cognitive load independently.

Cognitive Delegation Focus:

Orchestrating distributed cognitive systems while maintaining quality control over AI-augmented processes.

We can still go for a jog or go hunt our own deer, but for reaching the stars we, the Apes do what Apes do best: Use tools to build on our cognitive abilities. AI is a tool.

3/3

In my STEM studies, the content is typically objective, factual, mechanical, and devoid of humanity.

More recently, first through #leanthinking, and then into #agile, #systemsthinking, #industrialengineering, I've come to realize that engineering with humanity creates progress for everyone, for the long term.

Thinkers like Galbraith, Follett, and Matthews show us a fair path, showing the bigger picture and putting humanity over profits.

IMHO, @debcha belongs in that same pantheon.

1/

How do we anticipate vital needs through livable #systems?
Which methods feed each other without #waste?
What does #innovation look like when not limited by profitability?

Contribute from anywhere to build an #openknowledge bank.

REGISTER INTEREST: https://makeinplace.org

Rehearsing the talk for @dddeu next week (yup, I actually do that! ) and it's coming together rather nicely.

I look forward to presenting my current take on systems thinking and its importance to us. We need it more than ever.
#DDDEU #systemsThinking

@thoughtshrapnel Nice shoutout @inevernu ! Would listen in to a chat between the two of you about #SystemsThinking. Maybe with our friends at Look Wonder Discover?

https://lookwonderdiscover.org/who-we-are/

(Also, microblog didn’t allow me to log in with this account, for some reason.)

If your decision-making process needs a flowchart...
You’re already paying the complexity tax.
New post on how hidden complexity erodes resilience—and how to start simplifying.
https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/how-hidden-complexity-tax-saps-organization-resilience/
#SystemsThinking #Agile #Complexity

Why is US healthcare so expensive?

Partly because of invention of highlifts, pressure washers, which allow hospital administrators to scratch the awful itch of "the parking garage is grubby!"

In turn, because of automobile addiction.

This isn't health care but costs a boatload of moola.

Parenthetically "he's doing it all wrong." Should have started at the top and worked down. That's my itch. :-)

#dataArchitects and #projectManagers and #systemsThinking people.... I'm checking in to see if people have tools they like for documenting their long term planning. I certainly have wikis and spreadsheets and they may really be the answer to publication and dissemination as I collect lists of every codebase in my purview and its known annual basic maintenance requirements. Anyone got thoughts about keeping track of over arching basic maintenance costs on teams (yes yes, I can ticket things, but this is the stage of the work before there are tickets). I am perfectly aware that tools don't solve these problems -- good old fashioned thought and note taking solves these problems, but I'm dithering over where and how to create some long-lived public artifacts and am curious if people like anything better than a wiki.