History of Systems Science

Engineering defines systems science as “the application of scientific principles to practical ends” (Oxford English Dictionary). We would expect engineering disciplines which take a systems approach (such as systems engineering) to be based upon a System Science (glossary). The term science implies a well defined branch of knowledge, with a clearly recorded and coherent historical development. This is not the case for systems science, which has a fragmented history. For instance, some fundamental concepts now used in systems science have been present in other disciplines for many centuries, while equally fundamental concepts have independently emerged as recently as 40 or so years ago (Flood and Carson 1993).

Development of the system movement

Many attribute the notion of thinking about the whole to the Greek philosophers, exemplified by the work of Aristotle in examining multiple discipline related aspects in what is termed metaphysics. The explosion of knowledge in the natural and physical sciences during the Enlightenment of the 18th and 19th centuries made the move away from this natural philosophy approach to the creation of specialist disciplines inevitable. The only way for science to advance was for scientists to become expert in a narrow field of study. As disciplines emerged they created their own models and views of reality, which become increasingly specialized and associated with a field of study. The creation of educational structures to pass on this knowledge to the next generation of specialists perpetuates the fragmentation of knowledge into the present day (M’Pherson 1973).

Along with this increasing specialization of knowledge and education, the majority of western scientific study in the 19th century was based upon Descartes' notion of reductionism and closed system , sometimes call Machine Age, thinking (Flood 1999). This approach forms models based on the study of things in isolation and the establishment of rules on how they relate to each other. Unfortunately, this also led to a rational science movement, popularized by Popper (Popper 1972), which rejects any phenomena which do not fit with this rational view as not worthy of study.

While these ideas of specialist knowledge and rational analysis have provided a useful model through which a vast amount of scientific knowledge has been gained, they can also be a barrier to our ability to gain knowledge across disciplines and outside of the closed system view. The systems movement has its roots in two areas of science: the biological-social sciences; and a mathematical-managerial base stemming first from cybernetics and later from organizational theory. Both of which have developed around an open system and systemic thinking approach.

Over the last century and into the current one, system science practitioners have considered unified theories of systems and sciences; produced hard approaches to optimize system solutions, and produced soft approaches to create systems of problem understanding and critical approaches based on system of system approaches.

The Development of Systems Science

The following overview of the evolution of system science is broadly chronological, but also follows the evolution of system thinking.

Open Systems and General Systems Theory

Ludwig von Bertalanffy developed a research approach based on Open System Theory (Bertalanffy 1950). He was one of a number of natural scientists who realized that the reductionist closed system approach could not be used to explain the behavior of an organism in its environment.

Open system theory considers an organism as a complex entity composed of many parts with an overall integrity, co-existing in an environment. In an open system the organism's structure is maintained, or adapts, through a continual exchange of energy and information with its environment.

general system theory (GST), attempts to formulate principles relevant to all open systems (Bertalanffy 1968). GST is based on the idea that correspondence relationships (homologies) exist between systems from different disciplines. Thus, knowledge about one system should allow us to reason about other systems. Many of the generic system concepts come from the investigation of GST.

GST also implies a scientific approach, with identified laws and generalized theory to unify all science. Bertalanffy was co-founder, along with Kenneth Boulding (economist), Ralph Gerard (physiologist) and Anatol Rapoport (mathematician), of the Society for General Systems Research in 1957. This group is considered by many to be the founders of System Age Thinking (Flood 1999).

Cybernetics

cybernetics was defined by Wiener, Ashby and others as the study and modeling of communication, regulation and control in systems (Ashby 1956; Wiener 1948). Cybernetics studies the flow of information through a system and how information is used by the system to control itself through feedback mechanisms. Early work in cybernetics in the 1940s was applied to electronic and mechanical networks, and was one of the disciplines used in the formation of early systems theory. It has since been used as a set of founding principles for all of the significant system disciplines.

Operations Research and Organizational Cybernetics

operations research (OR) considers the use of technology by an organization. It is based on mathematical modeling and statistical analysis to optimize decisions on the deployment of the resources under an organization's control. It arises from military planning techniques developed during World War II.

Operations Research and Management Science (ORMS) was formalized in 1950 by Ackoff and Churchman applying the ideas and techniques of OR to organizations and organizational decisions (Churchman et al 1950).

Stafford Beer was one of the first to take a cybernetics approach to organizations (Beer 1959). For Beer the techniques of ORMS are best applied in the context of an understanding of the whole system. Beer also developed a Viable Systems Model (Beer 1972), which encapsulates the effective organization needed for a system to be viable (to survive and adapt in its environment).

Work in cybernetics and ORMS consider the mechanism for communication and control in complex systems, and particularly in organizations and management sciences. They provide useful approaches for dealing with operational and tactical problems within a system, but do not allow consideration of more strategic organizational problems (Flood 1999).

Systems dynamics

Systems Dynamics (SD) uses some of the ideas of cybernetics to consider the behavior of systems as a whole in their environment. SD was developed by Jay Forrester in the 1960’s (Forrester 1961). He was interested in modeling the dynamic behavior of systems such as populations in cities, industrial supply chains.

SD is also used by Senge (Senge 1990) in his influential book The Fifth Discipline. This book advocates a system thinking approach to organization, and makes extensive use of SD notions of feedback and control.

Hard Systems Methodologies

Checkland (Checkland 1978) classifies hard system methodologies, which set out to select an efficient means to achieve a predefined end, under the following headings:

1. System Analysis, the systematic appraisal of the costs and other implications of meeting a defined requirement in various ways.
2. Systems Engineering, the set of activities that together lead to the creation of a complex man-made entity and/or the procedures and information flows associated with its operation.

Operational Research is also considered a hard system approach, closely related to the Systems Analysis approach developed by the Rand Corporation, in which solutions are known but the best combinations of these solutions must be found. There is some debate as to whether System Dynamics is a hard approach, which is used to assess the objective behavior of real situations. Many application of SD have focused on the system, however it can and has also be used as part of a soft approach including the modelling of subjective perceptions (Lane 2000).

Systems Engineering allows for the creation of new solution systems, based upon available technologies. This hard view of systems engineering as a solution focused approach applied to large, complex and technology focused solutions, is exemplified by (Jenkins 1969; Hall 1962) and early defense and aerospace standards.

NOTE: More recent developments in systems engineering have incorporated problem focused thinking and agile solution approaches. It is this view of SE that is described in this SEBoK.

All of these hard approaches use systems thinking to ensure complete and viable solutions are created and/or as part of the solution optimization process. These approaches are appropriate to unitary problems, but not when the problem situation or solution technologies are unclear.

Soft Systems and Problem Structured Methods

Problem Structuring Methods (PSM) are interactive and participatory approaches to assist groups of diverse participants to alleviate a complex, problematic situation of common interest. Typically the hardest element of the situation is framing the issues which constitute the problem (Minger and Resenhead 2004).

PSM use systems and systems thinking as an abstract framework for investigation, rather than a structure for creating solutions. Systems descriptions are used to understand the current situation and describe an idealized future. Interventions directly in the current organization to move towards the idea recognize that the assumptions and mental models of the participants are an important obstruction to change and that these differing views cannot be dismissed but must form part of the intervention approach.

Action Research is an approach first described by Kurt Lewin as a reflective process of progressive problem solving in which reflection on action leads to a deeper understanding of what is going on and to further investigation (Lewin 1958).

Peter Checkland’s action research program in the 1980‘s led to an Interpretative-based Systemic Theory which seeks to understand organizations by not only observing the actions of people, but by building understandings of the cultural context, intentions and perceptions of the individuals involved. This theory forms the basis of work by Checkland, Wilson and others in the development of soft systems methodology (SSM) (Checkland 1999; Wilson 2001). SSM formalizes the idea of a soft approach using systemic thinking to expose the issues in a problem situation and guide interventions to reduce them. SSM provides a framework of ideas and models to help guide participants through this systemic thinking.

Other PSM approaches include Interactive Planning Approach (Ackoff 1981); Social Systems Design (Churchman 1968), and Strategic Assumptions Surfacing and Testing (Mason and Mitroff 1981).

SSM and other soft approaches use systems thinking to ensure problem situations are fully explored and resolved. These approaches are appropriate to pluralist problems. Critics of SSM suggest that it does not consider the process of intervention, and in particular how differences in power between individuals and social groups impacts the effectiveness of interventions.

Critical systems thinking and Multimethodology

The development of a range of hard and soft methods naturally leads to the question of which method to apply when (Jackson 1989). critical systems thinking (CST) or Critical Management Science Jackson (Jackson 1985) attempts to deal with this question.

The word critical is used in two ways. Firstly, critical thinking considers the limits of knowledge and investigates the limits and assumptions of hard and soft systems, as discussed in the above sections. From this comes frameworks and meta-methodology for when to apply different methods such as Total Systems Intervention (TSI) (Flood and Jackson 1991).

The Multi-Methodology approach takes this aspect of critical thinking one stage further to recognize the value of combining techniques from several hard or soft methods as needed (Mingers and Gill 1997).

The second aspect of critical thinking considers the ethical, political and coercive dimension and the role of system thinking in society. The addition of the coercive dimension in Jackson's SOSM framework (Jackson 1990) (see Systems Thinking for more detail) adds the postmodernist dimension to CST. While these ideas sit at the extreme of system thinking as a tool for problem solving, Jackson (Jackson 2003) identifies the work of some authors who have included these ideas into their systems approach.

References

Citations

Ackoff, R.L. 1981. Creating the Corporate Future. Wiley; New York.

Ashby, W. R. 1956. Introduction to Cybernetics. Methuen, London, UK.

Beer, S. 1959. Cybernetics and Management. English Universities, London; Wiley, New York.

Beer, S. 1979. The Heart of the Enterprise. Wiley, Chichester.

Bertalanffy, L. von. 1950. The theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology. Science, New Series, Vol. 111, No 2872 (Jan 13), pages 23-29

Bertalanffy, L. von. 1968. General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. Revised ed. New York, NY: Braziller.

Checkland, P.B. 1975. "The origins and nature of “hard” systems thinking." Journal of Applied Systems Analysis, 5.

Checkland, P. 1999. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, New York, John Wiley & Sons.

Churchman, C. W. 1968. The Systems Approach. Dell Publishing; New York.

Churchman, C.W. Ackoff, R.L. and Arnoff, E.L. 1950. Introduction to Operations Research. Wiley, New York.

Flood, R. L. 1999. Rethinking the Fifth Discipline: Learning within the unknowable. Routledge (London and New York)

Flood R and Jackson M. 1991. Creative Problem Solving: Total Systems Intervention. Wiley; London.

Flood, R. L., & Carson, E. R. 1993. Dealing with complexity: An introduction to the theory and application of systems science (2nd ed.). New York: Plenum Press.

Forrester, J. 1961. Industrial Dynamics. MIT Press; Cambridge, MA.

Hall, A. D. 1962. A methodology for systems engineering. Van Nostrand Reinhold; New York.

Jackson, M. 1985. "Social Systems Theory and Practice: the need for a critical approach." International Journal of General Systems 10, 135-151.

Jackson, M. 1989. "Which Systems methodology when? Initial results from a research program." In: R Flood, M Jackson and P Keys (eds). Systems Prospects: the Next Ten Years of Systems Research, Plenum, New York.

Jackson, M. 2003. Systems Thinking: Creating Holisms for Managers. Wiley; Chichester

Jackson, M. C. and Keys, P. 1984. "Towards a System of Systems Methodologies." The Journal of the Operational Research Society. Vol. 35, No. 6 (Jun.,), pp. 473-486

Jenkins, G.M. 1969. The Systems Approach. In Beishon, J and Peters, G. (eds.), Systems Behavior (2nd ed.). Harper and Row; New York.

Lewin, K. 1958. Group Decision and Social Change. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 201.

Mason, R. O. and Mitroff, I. I. 1981. Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions: theory, case and techniques, Wiley; New York.

Mingers, J and Gill A. 1997. Multimethodology: Theory and Practice of Combining Management Science Methodologies. Wiley; Chichester.

Mingers, J, and Rosenhead, J. 2004. Problem Structuring Methods in action. European Journal of Operations Research.

M’Pherson, P, K. 1974. "A perspective on systems science and systems philosophy." Futures Volume 6, Issue 3, June 1974, Pages 219-239

Popper, K. R. (1972, 1979): Objective Knowledge, 1st or 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Senge, P. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation. Century Books; London.

Wiener, N. 1948. Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Hermann & Cie Editeurs, Paris, The Technology Press, Cambridge, Mass., John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York

Wilson, B. 2001, Soft Systems Methodology—Conceptual model building and its contribution. J.H.Wiley.

Primary References

Bertalanffy, L. von. 1968. General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. Revised ed. New York, NY: Braziller.

Checkland, P. 1999. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, New York, John Wiley & Sons.

Flood, R. L. 1999. Rethinking the Fifth Discipline: Learning within the unknowable. Routledge (London and New York)

Jackson, M. 1985. "Social Systems Theory and Practice: the need for a critical approach." International Journal of General Systems 10, 135-151.

Additional References

Bowler, D.T. 1981, General systems thinking: its scope and applicability”, Elsevier, Amsterdam.

Boulding, K.E. 1996, The World as a Total System, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills.

Laszlo, E., ed. 1972, The relevance of General Systems Theory, George Brazillier.

Skyttner, L. 1996, General Systems Theory - An Introduction, Macmillan Press, Basingstoke.

Warfield, J.N. 2006, An Introduction to Systems Science, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte Ltd, Singapore.

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