Complex Systems
A lot of my reading recently seems very coincidentally related to the concept of complex systems. What I’m reading proposes that linear (cause and affect) systems are the special case, the vast majority of systems in the universe are complex, emergent systems.
Since getting my Kindle about a year ago I’m reading (and buying – go frictionless commerce!) more books than ever. And because the Kindle is so convenient and I can read the same books on my Kindle, Mac(s) and IPhone it means that I generally read e-books rather than paper books.
However, its seems that I have defeated myself a little and should have read two of the paper books that have been sat on my shelves for over a year (since before buying my Kindle) and perhaps been that much ahead.
Number one is The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge:
Number two is Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Demming
Obviously, I don’t know what those two books say exactly, but they have been referenced and alluded to many times in my last few readings (and viewings).
- Learning and Perverse Incentives, a great talk by Liz Keogh: watch at the most awesome infoq.com. In this talk Liz covers several examples of management incentives and controls that have very surprising outcomes (and generally not very good ones).
- Surprising outcomes is a defining characteristic of Complex Systems as I learned from Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows.
- I’m currently reading Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo which is very explicitly bringing together a lot of the systems thinking into context for managing software development teams.
- Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson, et al. This book is full of real-life concrete stories of people who have transformed complex systems to improve the world. The example systems include controlling the AIDS epidemic in Thailand, eradication of the Guinea worm in African villages and how the Delancey Street Foundation has helped rehabilitate 90% of its residents. This book really exemplifies ‘dancing with a system’ to enact change, rather than trying to constrain and control a system and Shifting the Burden to the Intervenor.
Whilst researching this post I stumbled on another book that is familiar to me, but only because I’ve intended to purchase it for several years, but for some reason I haven’t, which is surprising considering it’s written by the very astute Gerald M. Weinberg: An Introduction to General Systems Thinking.
I suppose that is now more fodder for my Kindle (and my brain): once I’ve read the two paper books, obviously.
So as most things are complex systems I suppose it’s likely that my reading converging on complex systems is perhaps an emergent property of one of the systems I am an element in.
No related posts.