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Time: 20 hours
Level: Advanced
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 Introduction Resource- When you meet with a situation you experience as complex you need to think about yourself in relation to the process of formulating a system of interest. Only with this awareness, can you increase your...
| | | | | 1 Managing complex systems
- 1.1 Thinking about expectations Resource
- Anticipations and preconceptions are an important determinant of how people learn, so before you read on, I would like you to record some of what you are experiencing now as you begin the unit.
| | | | | 2 Preparing to tackle this unit
- 2.1 The nature of systems thinking and systems practice Resource
- There are no simple definitions for either systems thinking or systems practice. It's difficult to find definitions that capture all the perspectives that the ideas carry for people who think of themselves...
- 2.2 Taking responsibility for your own learning Resource
- Not much of this unit conforms to the traditional pattern I mentioned earlier – the theory-example-exercise pattern. In particular, you will find you are expected to discover much of it for yourself. Why...
- 2.3 Appreciating epistemological issues Resource
- Common sense tells me my experience and understanding of the world are limited. I am 173 cm in height. That limits my view of the world. It may not matter much that I cannot see what my house looks like...
- 2.4 Review Resource
- In working through this section, you have identified some of your initial expectations and I have explained some of what I think you will discover as you work through the unit. It would be appropriate...
| | | | | 3 Understanding systems approaches to managing complexity
- 3.1 Introduction Resource
- I wonder if you experience complexity in your daily life? For much of the time I struggle to keep my head above water as I try to understand and manage the complexity I experience as part of everyday life....
- 3.2 Making sense of the metaphor Resource
- The metaphor of the juggler keeping the four balls in the air is a powerful way for me to think about what I do when I try to be effective in my practice. It matches with my experience: it takes concentration...
| | | | | 4 Systems practice – unpacking the juggler metaphor
- 4 Systems practice – unpacking the juggler metaphor Resource
- Systems practice, modelled in Figure 6, is a particular form of the general model of practice in Figure 3. An effective systems practitioner, Ps, is able to use systems approaches in managing complexity....
| | | | | 5 Being a systems practitioner
- 5.1 The state of ‘Being’ Resource
- The structure of Section 5 is set out in Figure 8. Use this as a way of keeping track of the argument I am making.
- 5.2 Being aware of the constraints and possibilities of the observer Resource
- It is often claimed that the essence of a systems approach is that of seeing the world in a special way. This immediately prompts the question of what is meant by the phrase ‘seeing the world’. Because...
- 5.3 Appreciating your basis for understanding Resource
- In my experience, the explanation that Fell and Russell suggest (i.e. that we each construct our own version of reality and therefore cannot be an objective observer; which in turn means we have to take...
- 5.4 Experience – making distinctions based on a tradition and constructing a history Resource
- Experience, and learning from experience, will be a major theme throughout this course. The model of experiential learning developed by David Kolb is increasingly well known and used as a conceptual basis...
- 5.5 Distinctions about systems practice Resource
- A tension has existed throughout the history of Western thought around whether to focus on parts or the whole. The practice that springs from this history carries the same tension. This tension has been...
- 5.6 Learning and effective action Resource
- I claim that learning is about effective action. It is distinguished when I, or another observer, recognize that I can perform what I was unable to perform before. Following Reyes and Zarama (1998), I...
- 5.7 Being ethical Resource
- As outlined in Table 2, ethics within systemic practice are perceived as operating on multiple levels. Like the systems concept of hierarchy, what we perceive to be good at one level might be bad at another....
- 5.8 Reviewing some implications for systems practice Resource
- The following anecdote exemplifies one of the main reasons why I think juggling the B ball is important for systems practice. The story relates to two practitioners who were able to connect with the history...
| | | | | 6 Engaging with complexity
- 6.1 Articulating your appreciation of complexity Resource
- I have organized the material in this section so that you can follow the activity route shown in Figure 6.
- 6.2 Experiencing complexity as mess or difficulty Resource
- In this section, I want to take the ideas of mess and difficulty and explore them in the context of complexity. I want to determine how these ideas are connected, how significant the connections are and...
- 6.3 Where is the complexity and what is it? Resource
- When I reflect on my experiences of child-support, I attribute the properties of mess, complex, or hard-to-understand to the situation. So, are mess, complex, and hard-to-understand the same thing? If...
- 6.4 Choosing to distinguish between complex situations and complex systems Resource
- Within some of the lineages of systems thinking and practice (Figure 7), the idea that system complexity is a property of what is observed about some ‘real-world’ system, is known as classical or type...
- 6.5 Appreciating some implications for practice Resource
- I think for most people, the National Health Service would be experienced as a complex situation. If so this would be a good example of perceived complexity. Remember though, if you engaged with it as...
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- Activity answers Resource
- Study Note: As outlined in the text I have not provided answers to all Activities. This is for two reasons:
| | | | | References and Acknowledgements | | |
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