Operating within systems

On a daily basis, you participate in many systems. There are ecological systems, market systems, organizational systems, project systems, and an infinite number of others. Oftentimes, people participating in these systems don't understand the other participants' goals, the dynamics between them, or maybe not even that they're a participant in the system themselve. An approach to understanding this is called "systems thinking." Wikipedia defines systems thinking as "any process of estimating or inferring how local policies, actions, or changes influences the state of the neighboring universe. It also can be defined, as an approach to problem solving, as viewing "problems" as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to present outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of the undesired issue or problem."

Effective architects must be systems thinkers, as if they're nothing else, they understand relationships between things...whatever the things are. Systems thinking requires you to understand the relationships between participants in systems and their causes and effects on each other. Most human beings by nature tend to focus first on their own needs, goals, desires, and objectives and often forget that everyone they work with does the same. This has unfortunate side effects given that many of the objectives you might have in life require help from others who have their own objectives that oftentimes, conflict with your own.

Strategies for finding win-wins is detailed further in the post titled Don't confuse influence with authority, but people who don't possess those skills or insight often simply assume that others are stupid, out to get them, or are up to something, because they don't understand this dynamic. Systems thinking helps you understand that just because others' might appear to be out to get you, oftentimes they're instead, just trying to achieve their objectives as best they can within the system, just like you are. In fact, if you better understood why they did what they did, you'd probably discover that if you were in their shoes, you'd do the same. Unfortunately though, many people don't take the time to better understand others in the system, because they're so consumed with their own objectives.

I've worked with many people over the years who believe that just about everyone who works outside their own team is stupid, inefficient, or out to get them. These are people who either don't understand systems thinking, or just don't care I suppose. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of stupid, inefficient people in the world, and some are out to get you. The better you understand systems thinking however, the fewer of them you'll come across, because you'll start assuming the opposite instead...that your perception is probably incorrect because there's something going on that you do not understand.

Similar to what was covered in the post Sooner or later, everyone will touch the stove‏, "getting" systems thinking is often best achieved by experiencing it in a learning scenario. To do so, I recommend that you play "the Beer Game" online. This is a supply chain simulation developed by the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s and is an experiential way to "get" systems thinking. Supply chain management is just an example scenario of course, but I'm sure you can easily apply this dynamic to projects you work on as well.

I also encourage you to read the book The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, by Peter Senge. Among other things, Peter mentions his use of the Beer Game in clients he's worked with over the years. Many of these clients or executive groups were from major Fortune 500 corporations. He discusses how some of the participants get so frustrated with the simulation they walk out of it without completing it. On a more technical front, a great reference is of course IEEE Standard 1471-2000: Recommended Practice for Architectural Description of Software-Intensive Systems

Effective architects don't get frustrated with systems, they know how to interact with the participants in them to achieve maximum results.