The document discusses the concept of systems, defining them as interconnected sets of elements that produce unique behaviors over time influenced by purpose and interconnections. It emphasizes the importance of understanding system dynamics, including feedback loops, stocks, and flows, which determine a system's response to changes and challenges. Additionally, it highlights that interventions in systems should consider their components and the relationships among them to effectively improve outcomes.

1. QUESTION
Whenever you wonder how the world is working?
Why we have to do thing in a specific way?
How is our society working?
 Could you name the common things in the following
example?
Car engine
Human body
University
Software
Manufacturer

2. MODULE 1:
INTRODUCTION TO
SYSTEM
Dr. Tuan Truong

3. SYSTEM STRUCTURES AND
BEHAVIORS

4. A SYSTEM IS A SET OF
THINGS INTERCONNECTED
IN SUCH A WAY THAT
THEY PRODUCE THEIR
OWN PATTERN OF
BEHAVIOUR OVER TIME

5. IS IT A SYSTEM?
Can you identify
specific elements?
No
Ye
s
Not a system
Are the parts
interconnected
and dependent on
each other?
No Not a system
Ye
s
When the parts
work together is
the effect different
from each part on
its own?
No Not a system
Ye
s
Is the effect
persistent over
time despite the
environment?
Ye
s
No
Not a system
It’s a system
Y
s

6. The Blind Men
and the Matter
of the
Elephant
“The behaviour of the system cannot be known by
just knowing the elements of which the system is
made” - DHM

7. SYSTEMS – MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS
Behaviours can and may include:
• Adaptive
• Dynamic
• Goal-seeking
• Evolutionary
Systems mostly cause their own
behaviour; outside events unleash
that behaviour

8. “EVERY SYSTEM IS
PERFECTLY DESIGNED TO
ACHIEVE THE RESULTS IT
GETS.”
DR. DON BERWICK

9. A SYSTEM CONSISTS OF:
• Elements
• Interconnections
• Common Purpose
Syste
m

10. EXAMPLES OF SYSTEMS
● Digestive system
● Sports team
● School
● City
● Factory
● Corporation
● National Economy
● Animal
● Tree
● Forest
● Earth
● Solar system
● Galaxy
● IT system

11. Flow of Information
drives
interconnections
Information holds
systems together

12. INFORMATION
The flow of which often
holds the system
together so when
combined with
knowledge and know-
how they operate as a
collective force.

13. WHAT CAN DETERMINE A SYSTEM’S BEHAVIOUR?
• Purpose & Function working n harmony
• Interconnections married to purpose
• Example:
• Teamwork
• Departments in an organization

14. AND DISCOURSE?
Changing relationships normally
changes a systems behavior.
WHY?
“To ask whether elements,
interconnections, or purpose are the
most important in a system is to ask
an unsystemic question” – DHM

15. FUNCTIONS AND
PURPOSE
 Functions are often
ascribed to machines
 While, purpose is
associated with human
elements.
 In truth a system has both
because elements are
often intertwined
A system will behave as the
function or purpose
determine

16. CHANGING ELEMENTS
USUALLY HAS THE LEAST
EFFECT; CHANGING
INTERCONNECTIONS OR
PURPOSE IS USUALLY
MORE DRAMATIC

17. EXAMPLES
 Change all members of a sports
team vs change rules of the game or
the definition of winning
 Change people in the organization
vs change the way of working or
the definition of organizational
success

18. EXERCISE 1.1
Choose a system and identify the following:
Elements
Interconnections
Purpose - system behavior
Could your group also identify its inputs and outputs?

19. STOCKS AND FLOWS

20. STOCK
Elements you can see, feel, count or measure
at any given time
The memory and history of the changing
flows within the system
 “Changes in stocks set the pace of the dynamics of systems”
 “Stocks are pretty much queues”
 Most individual and institutional decisions are designed to
regulate the levels in stocks.
There rate of change tends to be slow – so they act as a
buffer or shock absorbers to a system
Tốc độ thay đổi có xu hướng chậm - vì vậy chúng hoạt động
như một bộ đệm hoặc bộ giảm xóc cho một hệ thống
A stock can be increased by
decreasing its outflow rate as well
as by increasing its inflow rate

21. Inflow
Outflow
Stock
Information flow

22. EXAMPLES OF
STOCKS
 Water in a bathtub
 A population
 Books in a bookstore
 Wood in a tree
 Money in a bank

23. STOCKS CHANGE OVER TIME
VIA FLOWS
 Workflow
 Information flow
 Both inflow and outflow

24. FLOWS
Flows are filling and draining,
births and deaths, purchases and
sales, growth and decay, deposits
and withdrawals, successes and
failures.
A stock can be
increased by decreasing
its outflow rate as well
as by increasing its
inflow rate

25. Feedback loops
Attributes
• Closed chain of causal connections
• Runs from a stock and is impacted by a set of rules
• Often dependent upon stock levels
• Circular and iterative
TYPE – BALANCING FEEDBACK LOOPS
• Stabilizing – stock equilibrium maintained
• Goal relevant
• Sources of resistance to change
TYPE - REINFORCING FEEDBACK LOOPS
• Ability to reproduce itself
• Self-enhancing – exponential leanings
• Non linear

26. EXAMPLE OF BALANCING FEEDBACK LOOPS
Thermostat
Guided missile
Iterative, incremental software
development

27. REINFORCING FEEDBACK LOOPS
 Market collapse: uncertainty -> remove money -> more uncertainty
 Compound interest
 Death march: Too much to do -> work harder -> more bugs -> work even harder

28. SHIFTING DOMINANCE
• Dominance – when one
feedback loop (reinforcing or
balancing) has hold of a system.
This relationship can be dynamic
and has a profound impact
upon system behaviour.
•When neither feedback loop
dominates the system is said to
be in ‘dynamic equilibrium’ –
cân bằng động
•Example:
• Mindset
• Politics
• Body reaction

29. BE WARY OF ACCEPTANCE – NOT ALL MODELS ARE GOOD
• Are the driving factors of the
model realistic?
• Do you believe the model is a
fair representation of
behaviour?
• What are driving the driving
factors?
System dynamics – What if?

30. IF A CAUSES B, IS IT
POSSIBLE THAT B ALSO
CAUSES A?

31. DELAYS
Causality and delay
The delays in information mean
that feedback can only effect
future behaviour.
Even non-physical feedback is not
fast enough to correct behaviour it
can only impact the future
behavior
CHANGING NEED TIME

32. Room temperature
Heat from furnace
HEAT TO
OUTSIDE
Discrepancy between
desired and actual room
temperature
Discrepancy between
outside and inside
temperatures

33. A heating system is a
stock maintaining
balancing feedback loop
with natural heat loss or
gain. To establish
equilibrium the goal
must be set high or low
of target to avoid over or
undershoot. Flow does
not respond to flow – it
responds to a change in
the level off the stock

34. HOW FEEDBACK FAILS
 Late, lost, unclear,
incomplete, hard to interpret
information
 Weak, delayed, resource-
constrained, ineffective
response

35. STOCK CONTROL &
DELAY
• Perception delay – is the change
in demand for real?
• Response delay – is there a need
to make partial adjustments?
• Deliver delay – If demand is rising
what delays are wholesalers
experiencing of their own?

36. SYSTEMS FOR POPULATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
Systems with
similar feedback
structures
produce similar
dynamic
behaviour

37. DELAYS – A SYSTEM WOULD
NEVER BE WITHOUT THEM
• They are pervasive
• They have repercussions
• Systems can modify their
behaviours on the back off them
• They lead to oscillations

38. LIMITS
• In any exponentially growing system with physical aspects
there must be a reinforcing feedback loop driving growth and
a balancing loop acting against this.
• No physical system can grow forever

39. REMIND -
SYSTEMS
CONSISTS OF
THREE THINGS
Elements
Interconnections
Function (non-human system)
or Purpose (human system)

40. SYSTEM INTERACTIONS
OPERATE THROUGH
INFORMATION FLOW

41. ADDRESS INCONGRUENT
PURPOSES
System purposes do
not necessarily
match the intention
of the designers or
actors within it

42. HOW MIGHT YOU
INTERVENE IN YOUR
SITUATION TO IMPROVE
THE SYSTEM?

43. EXERCISE 1.2
Use the system in the previous exercise and
identify its stocks, flow.
How would you change the system and
why?

44. ANY QUESTIONS?