Intro Systems Thinking
Intro Systems Thinking
com
Vanguard Scotland - Helping Service Organisations Become Industry Leaders ©Vanguard (Scotland) Ltd 2008
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I
n order to understand systems thinking it is useful to understand traditional thinking and
its origins to provide a comparison.
Traditional thinking has its roots in the The starting-place for those who
work of Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, challenged traditional management
Frederick Taylor and others. The ideas thinking was the fact that it caused sub-
developed by these people solved problems optimisation. Breaking an organisation into
of their time and led to improved parts (functions), setting targets for the
performance. parts and ‘managing by the numbers’
actually makes overall performance worse.
Systems thinking is a step beyond these
traditional ideas. It has its roots in the work To understand just how this happens
of Ackoff, Deming, Ohno, Senge and others requires managers to look at how the parts
who were the first work together, they have to take a systems
Systems thinking leads to
to challenge the view. When managers take a systems
‘economies of flow’ – a
status quo. perspective they learn that systems thinking
quantum leap beyond
‘Traditional is indeed a better way to make the work
economies of scale.
thinking’ is work.
s o m e t i m e s
Systems thinking provides the means to
labelled as ‘mass production thinking’; mass
understand work as a system. It leads to the
production methods lead to ‘economies of
scale’, systems thinking leads to ‘economies design and management of work from the
outside-in, managing flow rather than
of flow’ – a quantum leap beyond
function. It requires the development of
economies of scale.
different measures and methods. And these
The consequences are better service and principles lead to reductions in the number
lower costs, something the traditional of steps, reductions in end-to-end time,
manager would find counter-intuitive reductions in waste, improved service and
because improving service is usually reduced costs.
equated with increasing costs.
Understand what customers want and only do work that improves their experience
of the service
Ensure work goes out 100 per cent perfect, taking whatever time is needed and
drawing on all necessary resources
Manage the customer through to the end of the process, keeping them informed of
progress and the service levels they can expect
In meeting demand, work on the principle of 'first in, first out'; seek to improve the
end-to-end flow of work through the system every day
Use measures that tell staff how well they are achieving things that matter to
customers, not official specifications
Systems thinking organisations 2. Provide all staff with the tools and
perspectives needed in your particular
have 3 key operating principles: circumstances.
1. Ensure that continuous improvement of Working in this way ensures it is easy to
customer service and efficiency becomes deliver excellent service as it is easy to get
an integral part of the way that the things right and difficult to get things
business operates. wrong. Quality is built into the system from
the start.
The goal of continuous improvement
becoming integral to the way the business 3. Overcome any resistance to change
operates is achieved by ensuring everyone in
the organisation is using the same Using a ‘normative’ approach to change
principles, therefore action is taken on the (‘learn’ rather than ‘tell’) involves people in
system which improves performance in a understanding how their current system
consistent manner. It is an approach that works today – what makes it sub-optimal and
ensures integrity between people’s thinking how their own thinking and behaviour
and behaviour, and their actions on the way contribute to the system’s current
the work works. capability. From this position people feel
able to make informed choice about what to
do.
The first step is to analyse the current
THINKING system. This starts with establishing current
performance -customer satisfaction,
efficiency, revenue and productivity.
From here we look at how these results are
SYSTEM being achieved (features of the system) and
then, how thinking and behaviour are
maintaining the status quo.
PERFORMANCE
Measures www.answers.com/topic/control-chart