SATM 5.5 The Status of Applied Systems Thinking

It seems to be the case that the shelf life of management "fads" is diminishing. "Total Quality Management" (TQM) had a long run but was eventually overtaken by "Business Process Reengineering" (BPR), wich had its today before being replaced by the "Learning Organization", which had its moment, and so on. It is also widely accepted that change programs based on TQM, BPR, "Rightsizing", "knowledge Management", or whatever, fail, in the great majority of cases, to bring the benefits expected.

Systems thinking as a practical approach to problem-solving. Why we should grand high status to applied systems thinking. There are five arguments we might reasonably make at this stage.

SATM 5.4 Systems Thinking as a Transdiscipline

Systems thinking is then a general term used to denote the theories, methodologies, models, tools and techniques, which are based on systems ideas and concepts and are employed by those who argue for a systems approach.

SATM 5.2 The Systems Movement

The use of systems ideas in the "problem-solving" mode is worthy of recognition as an independent endeavor fo first ranking important in systems thinking. A contemporary map of the systems movement, based upon this revision of Checkland's guidelines; must therefore show three initial distinctions, as in Figure 5.1.