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

Jamshid Gharajedaghi (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0750671637 | ISBN-13: 978-0750671637 | Publication Date: May 24, 1999

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

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is an excellent addition to books written on Systems Thinking. It is practical and timely and can be used by a vast majority of professionals such as engineers, planners and managers. I recommend it very highly to practitioners and academics."
C. J. Khisty, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology

Book Description

Expanded and updated edition of a best selling classic that expands on developing all inclusive systems methodologies allowing for optimal business/organizational efficacy --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann (May 24, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750671637
• ISBN-13: 978-0750671637
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,301,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Successful Integration of Systems Thinking "Camps", February 11, 2006

By 

T. Pickering (Iowa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Systems Thinking, Second Edition: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture (Paperback)

Gharajedaghi's 2nd edition has accomplished an incredible feat - he has successfully integrated and synthesized the systems dynamics of Forrester with the systems thinking and interactive design of Ackoff. Jamshid connects Holistic thinking, operational thinking, socio-cultural models/conceptions, and interactive design into a complementary whole. Our organization has learned and is using Jamshid's methodology and it is fundamentally changing the way in which we see the world and the organizations that will be able to compete in this new "flat" world.

If you're ready to escape the confines of linear thinking and classical science and management approaches to organizational problems, then this is your book. This book is written conceptually, not linearly, and challenges any reader who is used to over-simplified, mainstream books yet it is not an overly technical read that would be approachable only to high-level engineers and systems scientists. Those not having approached systems thinking before might be better off simultaneously working through Senge's Fifth Discipline and Ackoff's Best as primers. Be prepared to read it slowly and repeatedly - the ideas are profound when considered carefully and openly and might challenge many core assumptions.

Having met Jamshid on several occasions, I have found him to be one of the brighest men to grace our world with a significant contribution to share - he very well may have the current "best" answer to organizational design for our times. To dismiss him as simply an "Ackoff disciple" or another guru trying to sell his services is shortsighted. Linear, prescriptive books become best-sellers that catapult authors into 5-digit fee days - Jamshid's 2nd edition isn't the stuff of best-sellers, but rather for "best-thinkers."

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Grand Unified Theory" of Management Practice?, June 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture (Paperback)

I have been an incurable "process geek" since first reading Hammer and Champy's "Reengineering the Corporation" about a decade ago. However, despite practicing reengineering and process management since then, it has always felt like something was missing. Other popular business books have filled in some of the missing puzzle pieces but the picture has not been complete. Jamshid Gharajedaghi's "Systems Thinking" brings it all together in a coherent whole. It's as close as I've come to a "Grand Unified Theory" of management practice.

Gharajedaghi's book is paradoxical. It is in some ways a difficult read, being at times quite theoretical and always intellectually stimulating. Like many other readers have reported, I had to read the book several times to really understand it (I've read it five times over the past six months). On the other hand, the material is extremely logical, well laid out, and quite common sense. At one level it is almost depressing as it lays out the challenges of dealing with highly complex and even messy sociocultural systems. Yet, it presents a straightforward methodology for systems design, analysis and improvement that can seemingly be used for any sort of organization. The book has all the rigor a scientific and analytical person would insist upon; but, it presents the purposeful and sociocultural organization in such a holistic way that I'm sure most philosophers, psychologists and sociologists would be nodding their heads in approval throughout the journey. I'm sure Jamshid would not view these as paradoxes at all. I'm sure he'd view all of these apparently opposing tendencies as "two sides of the same coin."

Since reading the book, I've had a chance to begin applying the principles to two design efforts. Understanding systems has helped immensely, and I have just barely dipped my toes into these waters. I won't forget the process management tools. Not at all. As it turns out, however, process management is, as Gharajedaghi might say, "necessary but not sufficient" for business success.

For those interested in putting their management tools together in one extremely useful took kit, "Systems Thinking" is a great albeit challenging next step. I've recommended it to many, and I recommend it to you.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important book of theory for systems practitioners, January 25, 2001

By 

Susan Leddick (Bozeman, MT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture (Paperback)

This is a book for people who want to know the why of systems theory and the how of systems practice. In addition to chapters on those two subjects, it also includes actual examples of organization designs the author and his colleagues have created with their clients. Imagine a theory expansive enough to guide the redesign of a nation, an organization, a work unit, a product, a service, or a process. This is what Gharajedaghi has done.

Gharajedaghi's contributions are particularly useful and challenging to practitioners of quality management. Systems practice (design) produces unique solutions to entire sets of problems that can't be solved one at a time. It produces solutions dependent on the context or situation rather than attempting to replicate "best practices" across settings. (Deming's admonition against copying holds true here.) Gharajedaghi emphasizes that function (what the organization, product, or process is supposed to do or produce), structure (the component parts or work groups and their relationships--what Gharajedaghi calls the architecture), and processes (for governance, engagement, learning, throughput, and conflict management) must be considered and designed simultaneously for compatability. Quality management practices address function and processes, but offer no guidance for structure.

The book is not an easy read: the concepts are substantive, and the theory is relatively complex. But the text is clear and the language spare, with few wasted words.

Gharajedaghi has contributed an important book, one to be read, re-read, studied, translated, tested, and challenged by those who would tackle the large and complex problems of social system organization and operation.