Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture

In a nutshell, this book is about systems. This book is written for those thinkers and practitioners who have come to realize that while the whole is becoming more and more interdependent parts display choice and behave independently, and that paradoxes are the most potent challenge of emergent realities.

With a practical orientation and yet a profound theoretical depth, the book offers an operational handle on the whole by introducing an elaborate scheme called iterative design. The iterative design explicitly recognizes that choice is at the heart of human development. Development is the capacity to choose; design is a vehicle for enhancement of choice and holistic thinking. 'Designers', in this book, seek to choose rather than predict the future. They try to understand rational, emotional, and cultural dimensions of choice and to produce a design that satisfies a multitude of functions. They learn how to use what they already know and also about how to learn what they need to know.

The imperative of interdependency, the necessity of reducing endless complexities, and the need to produce manageable simplicities require a different mode of thinking, a holistic frame of reference that would allow us to focus on the relevant issues and avoid the endless search for more details while drowning in proliferating information. While organizations as a whole are becoming more and more interdependent the parts display choice and behave independently. This is the dilemma this book tries to resolve. It is a unique, cutting edge work, with a practical orientation and yet a profound theoretical depth, which goes far beyond what is currently available.

Leading edge systems thinking and practice that goes far beyond what is currently available

It deals with the whole, both conceptually and practically, written in a reader-friendly style

Five real cases cited to demonstrate practical application of theories discussed

Gharajedaghi (president and CEO of INTERACT) goes beyond the simple declaration of the desirability of systems thinking and provides a practical orientation along with a theoretical depth. He operationally deals with the art of simplifying complexity, managing interdependency, and understanding choice using a novel scheme called iterative design. Twelve chapters discuss systems philosophy, theories, methodology, and practice.
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This book is a holistic approach to systems methodology. It deals with all dimensions of a system: structure, function and process. Peter Senge introduced Systems Thinking/practice. The author's clients asked the author to write a book to take them "further down the Senge trail." This book does that by taking the reader into real world" stories. It is based on real experiences in real companies. It is a unique, cutting edge work, with a practical orientation and yet a profound theoretical depth, which goes far beyond what is currently available.

Based on the "Systems Thinking" method of business management, this approach to systems methodology analyses structure, function and process in a holistic examination of real experiences in five real companies to give practical applicability to the theory of management of chaos and complexity.

Part I Systems Philosophy: The Name of the Devil; Part II Systems Theories: The Nature of the Beast; Part III Systems Methodology: The Logic of the Madness; Part IV Systems Practice: The Gutsy Few; Bibliography, Index