Using Applied Systems Thinking
■ dynamic thinking: positioning your issue as part of a pattern of behaviour that has developed over time;
■ genesis thinking: ‘system-as-cause’ thinking: constructing a model to explain how the problem behaviour arises;
■ contextual thinking: ‘forest’ thinking: seeing the ‘big picture’ and taking a more ‘on average’ view of the system;
■ generative thinking: analysing how things actually work, the cause and effect relationships, and how performance is actually being generated;
■ feedback thinking: moving away from laundry lists of exacerbating factors and describing the ‘feedback loops’ that interact to create the performance of the system;
■ ‘quantitative’ thinking: quantifying not just the hard data but also the soft variables that are operating in the system;
■ ‘scientific’ thinking: using models to discard falsehoods not just to ascertain ‘the truth’
■ visual thinking: revealing and processing patterns in data in 3D dynamic ways showing impact and evolution in the making