SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND SYSTEMS THINKING

Planes and nuclear power plants have done before, what is it about systems thinking?

- Now it is not enough to do complex work, it is necessary that in the course of its implementation hundreds of conflicting interests were taken into account what is IT.

Let me give you an example: the constructed road should satisfy the quality of the state inspection, motorists and truck drivers. At the same time, motorists should not swear at the high cost of transport tax and gasoline prices, from which the road funds from which this road is built are filled. Work in systemically organized projects is accepted not only by the "Customer Representative", but also by hundreds and thousands of other people who cannot be influenced at all. That is why we have cheap and high quality cars and phones. And not here - also roads and medicine.

Okay, who's doing this systems thinking?

- Previously, systems engineers were engaged in this, but in recent years, systems thinking has moved to other professions and there are systems managers, systems financiers and many other specialties that use a systems approach. This subject is taught in all the largest universities in the world, which speaks of its relevance.

How exactly does systems thinking help organize people?

- Systems engineers use a mega-model to organize activities. This is a computerized description of the subject of a collective work, considering all aspects of all work. Yes, you are not mistaken, for an airplane this will be 400 thousand descriptions and more likely even 40 million. That is why it is called a mega model, it is very large.

Okay, you have a mega model, so what?

- Now all 400 thousand people can negotiate, working with descriptions from this model. They do not need to build an airplane or a telephone to understand that different parts of their work have come together and can work together successfully, this is evident from the mega-model. Finding and fixing bugs in mega-models is much cheaper than in real systems. In a $ 10 billion project, $ 3 billion will be spent on creating and running a mega-model.

Understood nothing.- Everyone knows that the elephant is eaten in parts. To do complex work, it must be broken into small pieces and distributed to people. This is called splitting. Engineers break down a product and get a product structure or product structure, managers break down work or capital into parts and get a work breakdown structure (WBS) or budgets. For a long time, people got by with a small amount of partitions in their projects, but as the complexity of projects grew, the classic, established working methods taught and still taught in business schools created more and more problems. For example, the budget structure and work breakdown during the design of a power plant is not at all appropriate for the budget structure and work breakdown when operating and maintaining the same power plant while it is running. This led to an explosive growth in the so-called constructor versus technologist or white-collar and blue-collar problem. The most common phrase is "they have designed something that cannot be done." I will add that not only to do, but also to ride this, and to repair, is also not much fun.

And what do you want, this is how life is arranged, there is no single correct view! - Of course not, which is what they say in systems thinking. All views of all participants are carefully identified, recorded, and interests are taken into account during the design and creation of the system. This is the difference between modern systems thinking from other management systems - happiness for everyone, cheaply and so that no one leaves offended.

Wait, how can you take into account the opinion of 400 thousand people who will do all this, and even 400 million who will use all this? The only way is to do and try.

- Do you use an iPhone or another phone? You drive cars, fly airplanes, and now read this text from computers. But for the most part, everything suits you? So it is possible, although not easy at all. And you need to try in the mega-model, it's much faster and cheaper.