THE IDEAS BEHIND THE GUIDE
Systems theory is a family of approaches. Follow the question each tradition asks, rather than assuming they all offer the same kind of answer.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Open systems, relationships among components, and the search for structures that transfer. The ambition is more demanding than finding a loose resemblance between two things.
Norbert Wiener · W. Ross Ashby
Communication, feedback and the capacity to respond to disturbances. Formal control theory makes the assumptions behind stability and regulation explicit.
Jay Forrester · Donella Meadows · John Sterman
Stocks, flows, delays and simulation connect a proposed structure to behavior over time. Policy experiments are useful when the model and its limits remain visible.
Herbert Simon · Edward Lorenz · Philip Anderson
Nested structures, nonlinear dynamics and explanation at different scales. These are related questions with distinct methods, not one universal theory of everything.
C. S. Holling
A distinction between staying near an equilibrium and maintaining essential relationships through disruption. The disturbance and function must be specified.
Peter Checkland · Werner Ulrich
Learning, multiple perspectives and the choices behind a system boundary. An intervention can be technically effective yet answer a question that affected people reject.
Elinor Ostrom and contemporary researchers
Collective action, network propagation and adaptive decision-making connect system questions to empirical institutions and computational models.