Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking principles to organize this body of knowledge. The individual outcome of such efforts, an engineered system, can be defined as a combination of components that work in synergy to collectively perform a useful function.
Operations research, often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decision-making. The term management science is occasionally used as a synonym.
Anthony Stafford Beer was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics.
A decision support system (DSS) is an information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations and planning levels of an organization and help people make decisions about problems that may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in advance—i.e., unstructured and semi-structured decision problems. Decision support systems can be either fully computerized or human-powered, or a combination of both.
Within personality psychology, personal construct theory (PCT) or personal construct psychology (PCP) is a theory of personality and cognition developed by the American psychologist George Kelly in the 1950s. The theory addresses the psychological reasons for actions. Kelly proposed that individuals can be psychologically evaluated according to similarity–dissimilarity poles, which he called personal constructs. The theory is considered by some psychologists as forerunner to theories of cognitive therapy.
Morphological analysis or general morphological analysis is a method for exploring possible solutions to a multi-dimensional, non-quantified complex problem. It was developed by Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky. General morphology has found use in fields including engineering design, technological forecasting, organizational development and policy analysis.
Russell Lincoln Ackoff was an American organizational theorist, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Ackoff was a pioneer in the field of operations research, systems thinking and management science.
Soft systems methodology (SSM) is an organised way of thinking that's applicable to problematic social situations and in the management of change by using action. It was developed in England by academics at the Lancaster Systems Department on the basis of a ten-year action research programme.
In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fixed, where there is no single solution to the problem; and "wicked" denotes resistance to resolution, rather than evil. Another definition is "a problem whose social complexity means that it has no determinable stopping point". Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. Due to their complexity, wicked problems are often characterized by organized irresponsibility.
Management cybernetics is concerned with the application of cybernetics to management and organizations. "Management cybernetics" was first introduced by Stafford Beer in the late 1950s and introduces the various mechanisms of self-regulation applied by and to organizational settings, as seen through a cybernetics perspective. Beer developed the theory through a combination of practical applications and a series of influential books. The practical applications involved steel production, publishing and operations research in a large variety of different industries. Some consider that the full flowering of management cybernetics is represented in Beer's books. However, learning continues.
The issue-based information system (IBIS) is an argumentation-based approach to clarifying wicked problems—complex, ill-defined problems that involve multiple stakeholders. Diagrammatic visualization using IBIS notation is often called issue mapping.
Critical systems thinking (CST) is a systems approach designed to aid decision-makers, and other stakeholders, improve complex problem situations that cross departmental and, often, organizational boundaries. CST sees systems thinking as essential to managing multidimensional 'messes' in which technical, economic, organizational, human, cultural and political elements interact. It is critical in a positive manner because it seeks to capitalize on the strengths of existing approaches while also calling attention to their limitations. CST seeks to allow systems approaches such as systems engineering, system dynamics, organizational cybernetics, soft systems methodology, critical systems heuristics, and others, to be used together, in a responsive and flexible way, to maximize the benefits they can bring.
Interactive planning is a concept developed by Russell L. Ackoff, an American theorist, early proponent of the field of operations research and recognized as the pioneer in systems thinking. Interactive planning forwards the idea that in order to arrive at a desirable future, one has to create a desirable present and create ways and means to resemble it. One of its unique features is that development should be ideal-oriented. Interactive planning is unlike other types of planning such as reactive planning, inactive planning, and preactive planning.
Robust decision-making (RDM) is an iterative decision analytics framework that aims to help identify potential robust strategies, characterize the vulnerabilities of such strategies, and evaluate the tradeoffs among them. RDM focuses on informing decisions under conditions of what is called "deep uncertainty", that is, conditions where the parties to a decision do not know or do not agree on the system models relating actions to consequences or the prior probability distributions for the key input parameters to those models.
Confrontation analysis is an operational analysis technique used to structure, understand and think through multi-party interactions such as negotiations. It is the underpinning mathematical basis of drama theory.
A decisional balance sheet or decision balance sheet is a tabular method for representing the pros and cons of different choices and for helping someone decide what to do in a certain circumstance. It is often used in working with ambivalence in people who are engaged in behaviours that are harmful to their health, as part of psychological approaches such as those based on the transtheoretical model of change, and in certain circumstances in motivational interviewing.
DSRP is a theory and method of thinking, developed by systems theorist and cognitive scientist Derek Cabrera. It is an acronym that stands for Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives. Cabrera posits that these four patterns underlie all cognition, that they are universal to the process of structuring information, and that people can improve their thinking skills by learning to use the four elements explicitly.
David Allen Hickling is a British architect, strategic choice process consultant, author, game designer, and an authority in the field of toy forts and castles.
Colin Eden was a professor in management science and operations research at Strathclyde University.
Jonathan Vivian Rosenhead is a British mathematician, operational researcher and Labour Party activist.
