Systems thinking

I am reminded that it would be convenient to keep an index of some of my favorite resources about systems thinking.

• Systems Thinking For Designers is a much more thorough resource than this one
• How Complex Systems Fail is a succinct discussion of what it says on the tin
• 20 Things I’ve Learned As A Systems (Over) Thinker describes the personal challenges of this kind of work
• The Goat Rodeo Index is a discussion of the “hard-to-define quality of utter fuckedness” of badly broken complex systems
• How to organize a children’s party is a very charming introduction to the Cynefin framework for thinking about systems
• The Iron Law Of Institutions is

  the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself; thus, they would rather the institution “fail” while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to “succeeds” if that requires them to lose power within the institution

  (see also Archibald Putt’s Law Of Failure “innovative organizations abhor little failures but reward big ones”, which produces the evil career advice to avoid easy things)