System Thinking

Simulation & Modeling

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Overview

Why system matter

System Thinking
1.
2
2.
3.

Holistic (Integrated) Solution

Long Term Gain Solution
Win-Win Solution

Game of System Thinking

Objective:

By the end of this lesson, you will be motivated

to think about system rather than parts

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

0. Why System Matter?

GM closes plant in Fremont, California

(1982)

Worst quality record

W t llabor
Worst
b relations
l ti
Highest employee absenteeism and drug use

Toyota
y
opens
p
Fremont plant
p
in 1984

Hires 80% of GMs workforce

Outstanding quality record

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

1. System Thinking

An approach for developing models to

promote our understanding of events
events,
patterns of behavior resulting in the
events and even more importantly,
events,
importantly the
underlying structure responsible for the
patterns of behavior

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Three Solutions of System Thinking

1.
2.
3.

Holistic (Integrated) Solution

L
Long
Term
T
Gain
G i Solution
S l ti
Win-Win Solution

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

1+1 >< 2

Why is the whole less than the sum of its

parts?

2 software developers work together will

produce less code than if they work
separately

Why cant the whole be MORE than the

sum off it
its parts?
t ?

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Discussion Preparation

Form a discussion group (divide the class into

4-6 groups)
Select any system (social, politic, education,
physical biology etc) that you are interested to
physical,
discuss

Write the result of discussion & report to the

class

The same discussion topic will be continued

within this class and next classes

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Discussion: Specify Common Problem

Think of any problems in your society or

family or company or organization.
organization
What are the common problems?

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Common Problems

Why is the whole less than the sum of its

parts?

Focus on the short term gain

W k only
Work
l on the
th parts
t
They do their best to fight for its share of
limited resources
D i your best
Doing
b t is
i nott enough
h

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

System Thinkers Solution 1

Holistic approach
Pay attention to the interactions between
parts rather than the parts themselves
To manage a system we need to manage
the interactions between components

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Separate Improvement Destroy a System

System may be destroyed by separately

improving the performance of one or
more of their parts
Example: Business traveller wants to save
travel department money
money, use cheap
airline connections: cost more time and
p
g his or her performance
p
and
impacting
finally damage the purpose of business
travel

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Departmental Saving Problem

Each department head proudly tell of

their cost saving and profit
What they forget is that each cost saving
is done by eliminating services from other
business units
At the end
end, the net cost for the company
as whole increases and the net company
profit decreases

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Orchestra

In orchestra, the players are not there to

play solos as prima donnas,
donnas each one
trying to catch the ear of the listener
They are there to support each other
How about in your organization or family
or country? Each supporting each other
or just collection of prima donnas?

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

System Thinkers Solution 2

Long term vision

Focus on the long term profits or benefit
of the system as whole

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Short Term

Short term thinking will lead to crisis over crisis

Firefighting is rewarded,
rewarded even as the next fire starts
buring
Focus on quarterly profit statement to look good at the
expense of the future
Fear of the next quarterly statement
F
Fear
off th
the nextt performance
f
appraisal
i l
Fear of diminishing resources

Any person, with sufficient pressure, can achieve

any given target number through distortion,
shifting costs to others or outright falsification

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Long Term

Long term success and winning

environment for all come with system
thinking in practice

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

System Thinkers Solution 3

Cooperation

Work to achieve Win-Win results

IIntegrated
t
t d managementt ffor iimprovementt off
synergy that allows individuals working within a
system to achieve far more than the indiviual
themselves could have acieved.

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Group and not Individual

We cannott separate
W
t an iindividual
di id l
componet from its performance appraisal,
b t we can minimize
but
i i i individual
i di id l bonuses
b
(pay for the performance)
Group
p effort is encouraged,
g , with
participation by th workforce and
p byy management
g
leadership

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Intrinsic Motivation

Build bigger pie rather than fight over the

pieces
Employees develop pride and joy at their
work insted of merely chasing the latest
bonus or trying to avoid blame and the
latest retribution

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Summary

We are great at managing pieces and parts,

and attempt to optimize the whole by
optimizing individual parts.
Systems Thinking integrates to a higher whole
rather than dissecting
g to lower levels

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Discussion: Applying System Thinking

In your chosen system, how can you

apply system thinking?
In what way do you think your new
approach
h will
ill be
b beneficial?
b
fi i l?

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Bonus: Game of System Thinking

The purpose of this game is to reveal

system thinking through cooperation,
cooperation
competition, trust and negotiation
You can cooperate, or betray other teams
Please do not feel bad if your team is
betrayed by others. It is only game

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Game of System Thinking

Game preparation:
The class is divided into 4 teams
Give name to our team
Each round:

Each
h team willll discuss
d
about
b
what
h to vote within
h a
team
You are not allow to discuss the vote between teams
Write the vote in the paper together with your team
name

We will play for 8 rounds

Only at round 3, and 6, each team
representative can discuss between team

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Game of System Thinking

Objective:

G t th
Get
the hi
highest
h t score ffor your tteam.

Rule of the game:

You can either vote for X or for Y, not both.

If all teams vote Y, no team get any point
If all teams vote X, each team get 4 points
If there is a mixture of vote, those who vote
X get nothing but those who vote for Y get 5
points

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Discussion after game

What did you learn from this game?

If you have high trust and highly
cooperate, overall score up to 128
Compute the total score for each round
and for all rounds (I will write in the
white board)

Kardi Teknomo, PhD

Follow Up Game of System Thinking

We will play again 8 more rounds

However, now let us change the
objective of the game
Instead of getting highest score for your
team the objective is to obtain the
team,
highest overall score for all rounds.