Latest Blog Posts
By Gerrit Van Wyk
Blogs are a more recent social artifact, and as such, take on many shapes and forms. They are mostly short, and focused on a single topic, which in my case, creates significant problems...
By Gerrit Van Wyk.
Some define systems as entities consisting of interactions between multiple components, from which properties emerge that are more than the sum of the parts, for as long as the...
By Gerrit Van Wyk.
A blog about facilitated workshops, and an article about social engineering I recently read, connect in an intriguing way.
The blog makes the point facilitated workshops are...
By Gerrit Van Wyk.
Felix the flying frog.
There is a story about a man named Clarence, who had a pet frog named Felix, and decided he could make some money if he could make Felix fly. Felix pointed...
By Gerrit Van Wyk.
Getting one’s work published today is different from what it used to be. Many consider self-publishing a vanity project, and pay little attention to self-published works, but that...
By Gerrit Van Wyk.
The grid Flood and Jackson use for Total System Intervention (TSI), unintentionally exposes a major dilemma system thinking faces.
The basic premise is the different systems...
By Gerrit Van Wyk.
Flood and Jackson created a grid for grouping problem contexts in the 1990’s, with one axis representing the nature of reality, or systems, consisting of simple (closed) or complex...
By Gerrit Van Wyk.
Peter Checkland and coworkers designed a method of inquiry called Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). They realized problems associated with human activity tend to be vague, hard to...
By Gerrit Van Wyk
“We need a kind of thinking that reconnects that which is disjointed and compartmentalized, that respects diversity as it recognizes unity, and that tries to discern interdependencies....
By Gerrit Van Wyk.
West Churchman’s work and thinking looms large in my understanding of systems thinking. I don’t claim to be an expert on Churchman’s thought and work, hence what follows...