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Systems approach to problem solvingExcerpted from Flower, Joe. "New Tools, New Thinking," Healthcare Forum Journal, March/April, 1992, pp.62-67. Definition 1. System: a whole in which: a) every part can affect its behavior; b) parts affect each other—they're interdependent; c) subgroups of parts have the same properties as parts. No subgroup will have an independent effect on performance.A system is a whole that cannot be divided into independent parts. When you take a system apart you lose its essential properties. The understanding of a system never lies inside the system; it lies outside it. A system is a consequence of the way its parts interact, not the way they act. 2. Problems Problems don't exist. What we call a problem is something that's obtained by analyzing reality. But they never exist in isolation. Problems are part of larger wholes. Normally we look at a situation, analyze it, break it into a set of threats and opportunities, and then prioritize them. And then your planning effort is directed at the most serious ones and hopefully you work your way done the list. What have you done to reality, which consists of systems of problems? By taking it apart you have lost all the essential characteristics of the parts as well.The essence of system management lies in the concept of design. We design a desirable future and invent ways of approximating it as closely as possible. Current management forms 1. Reactive: tries to unmake change by eliminating the cause of the current problem. Doesn't work because of the false belief that when you get rid of what you don't want, you'll get what you want. You must direct your energies at getting what you want, not getting rid of what you don't want. 2. Inactive: clings to the present. Doesn't try to remove the causes of problems, but tries to suppress the symptoms. 3. Preactive: currently the dominant form of management, means — predict and prepare. You first try to predict what some future state is going to look like. If your more sophisticated you'll make several different predictions. Then you plan how to get to where you would like to be given the environments you predict. Predictions is the more important because if you predict wrong, the preparations are worthless. Why doesn't predictive management work? First, to imagine where you want to be in ten years is ridiculous. This becomes apparent when I ask you to define where you want to be right now. It turns out that you don't know. So how can you know where you want to be in ten years? Furthermore, every method of forecasting is a projection of the past into the future. Is it true that the past determines the future? Sometimes, but what happens between now and then depends much more on what we do between now and then than on anything that has happened in the past.Start by asking where you want to be right now. Then plan backwards from where you want to be to where you are — not from where you are to where you want to be. Idealized Redesign One of the best tools for planning is idealized redesign. This begins by assuming that the organization you're concerned with was destroyed last night. It no longer exists, but its environment remains the same. Now without any constraints other than that your design be technologically and socially feasible, you produce a design for what you would replace it with today, right now, if your free to replace it with whatever you wanted.Next, work backwards from there to the closest approximation to that state that you believe is obtainable within the period of time that you're considering. So if your looking at the next five years you ask the question "How close can I get to that design in five years?" That turns out to be a lot closer to where you want to be, then you can get by working forwards.
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