This document discusses systems and their characteristics. Some key points: - A system is a group of interacting components that form a unified whole. Components can be physical or intangible. - For something to be a system, all its parts must be present and arranged in a specific way to serve the system's purpose. - Systems have specific purposes within larger systems and maintain stability through feedback and adjustments. - Understanding a system's structure provides insight into patterns of events within that system over time. Activities are suggested to analyze systems and patterns.

1. Systems Engineering
Laboratory

2. System
Ê A system is a group of ininteracting, interrelated or
interdependentcomponents that form a complex and unified
whole.
Ê A system’s components can be physical objects that you can
touch, such as the various parts that make up a car.
Ê The components can also be intangible, such as processes;
relationships; company policies; information flows;
interpersonal interactions; and internal statesof mind such as
feelings, values and beliefs.

3. Example

4. Characteristics of Systems
Ê A SYSTEM’S PARTS MUST ALL BE PRESENT FOR THE
SYSTEMTO CARRY OUT ITS PURPOSE OPTIMALLY
Ê If you can take out components away from something without
affecting its functioning and its relationships, then you just have
a collections, not a system.
Ê Similarly if you add componentsto a collection without affecting
its functioning and relationships, it’s still just a collection.

5. Characteristics of Systems
Ê A SYSTEM’S PARTS MUST BE ARRANGED IN A SPECIFIC
WAY FORTHE SYSTEMTO CARRY OUT ITS PURPOSE.
Ê If the components of a collection can be combined in any
random order, then they do not make up a system.
Ê However in a systems such as a company, imagine what would
happenif the parts shifted around randomly-if, for instance, the
accountant specialists suddenly decided to work on the
production line and the production specialists decided to write
marketing copy.

6. Characteristics of Systems

7. Characteristics of Systems
Ê SYSTEMS HAVE SPECIFIC PURPOSESWITHIN LARGER
SYSTEMS
Ê All systems have specific purpose in relationshio to the larger
system in which they’re embedded.
Ê Because each system has its own purpose, each is a discrete
entity and has a kind of integrity that holds it together. In other
words, you can’t force two or more systems together and get a
new, single, larger system. Nor can you subdivide a system and
automatically end up with two smaller identical, functioning
systems.

8. Characteristics of Systems
Ê SYSTEMS MAINTAINTHEIR STABILITYTHROUGH
FLUCTUATIONS AND ADJUSTMENTS
Ê Left to themselves, systems seek to maintain their stability.
Ê Systems achieve this stability through the interactions,
feedback, and adjustments that continually circulate among the
system parts, and between the system and its enviroment

10. Characteristics of Systems
Ê SYSTEMS HAVE FEEDBACK
Ê Feedback isthe transmission and return of information.
Ê The most important feature of feedback is that it provides the
catalyst for change in behavior.
Ê A system has feedback within itself. But because all systems are
part of larger systems, a system also has a feedback between itself
and external systems.
Ê Feedback is not necessarily transmitted and returnedthrough the
same system component or even through the same system

12. Events, Patterns Structure
Ê Systems are built on structures that leave evidence of their
presence, like fingerprints or tire marks, even if you can’t see
them.
Ê Structure is the overall way in which the system components
are interrelated
Ê The importance of understanding a system’s structure
explains all the events and trends that we see happening in
the worl around us.

13. Events, Patterns Structure
Events
Patterns
Structure

14. Events
Ê We live in an event-focused society.
Ê A fire breaks out in the neighborhood.
Ê A project misses a deadline.
Ê A machine Breaksdown
Ê We tend to focus on events rather than think about their
causes or how they fit into larger patterns .

15. Patterns
Ê Whereas events are like a snapshot, a picture of a single
moment in time patterns let us understad reality at a deeper
level.
Ê Patterns are trends, or change in events over time.
Ê Detecting a pattern helps you put the most recent event in
the context of the other, similar events.The spotlight is then
taken off the specific event, and you can focus on exploring
how the series of events are related and begin thinking about
what caused them.

16. Patterns

17. Structure
Ê Whenever we are ask questions like, “why is this pattern
happeninng?” or “What’s causing these events?” we are
probing at structure.
Ê Thinking at the structural level means thinking in terms of
causal connections.
Ê It is the structural level that holds the key to lasting, high-
leverage change

18. Structure

19. Levels of Understanding

20. Activity 1
Ê Think about three different systems and describe them, you
must list:
Ê Description
Ê Components
Ê Intangible Components
Ê Larger System

21. Activity 2
Ê 1. Identify a chronic problem or on going issue that you
wrestle with your daily life (for example, “Sales do well for a
while, then drop, then pick up again” or “Every year more and
more people get laid off”.
Ê 2. Try drawing a graph of what seems to be happening. (Tip:
Ask yourself, Is the pattern going up? Going down?,
Oscillating over time? Going up or down and then leveling
off?)
Ê 3. Looking at your graph, what do you see?

22. Activity 3
Ê For each System you have descibed before design a diagram
that explain clearly al connections and relations between
elements that justify it as systems.