Systems Thinking is basically just a term coined to describe the act of taking the perspective that the world is made of systems, any given problem can be considered a systems problem.

This approach is apparently not common, or doesn’t seem to come to some people as naturally as it lines up with my standard way of thinking. The more I read about “systems thinking” the more it seems to confirm that my typical way of thinking about things is through a systems lens.

Systems thinking is useful because common patterns/archetypes/principles show up in systems of all varieties.

Example of a common pattern across domains:

  • From biology - the more highly specialized a species is, the less likely it will adapt to a new environment
  • From computing - the more well-optimized a software is to a certain kind of database, the less easy it will be to adapt to a new one

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