4/02/2008

Systems Thinking Applies to Software Development

"The Systems Thinking Laws from Peter Senge’s book “The Fifth Discipline” applied to Software Development.

1. Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions...
2. The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back...
3. Behavior grows better before it grows worse...
4. The easy way out usually leads back in...
5. The cure can be worse than the disease...
6. Faster is slower...
7. Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space...
8. Small changes can produce big results-but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious...
9. You can have your cake and eat it too - but not at once...
10. Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants...
11. There is no blame...

"So what?

"These 11 laws of The Systems Thinking show that all our solutions have consequences, sometimes bad and unexpected. Systems around us are what they are, and we shouldn’t blame, but learn them. To master Systems Thinking and control these systems we should understand what are the systems we are dealing with, either human or software, consciously learn relations, cause and effect chains, perceive the systems as a whole and as the part of other systems..."

Read more in this article from eioba.com from which the foregoing is quoted.