Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit (Stanford Business Books) Review

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Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit (Stanford Business Books) ReviewThis book is very much for management consultants or project leaders who are looking for different ways to help a group or organisation think through a complex problem. While the key information is contained in this book, it is fairly brief. The book will help such a person ask useful questions, stimulate discussion and structure the problem. Within that scope, it provides an overview of a variety of methods, with enough detail about each to start a discussion and pointers to further information.
However, it essentially ignores the 'hard' end of complex systems thinking, focusing almost entirely on 'soft' (or problem structuring) methods. There are many different simulation and other mathematically based techniques that are either excluded or inappropriately covered. One glaring example: agent based modelling is listed (and not described) as a variation of system dynamics. This is only true to the extent that they are both simulation techniques; they are almost opposite in types of problems for which they can be used.
Nevertheless, I am giving the book 4 stars (rather than 3) on the basis that what it does, it does quite well.Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit (Stanford Business Books) OverviewSystems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit explores the application of systems ideas to investigate, evaluate, and intervene in complex and messy situations.The text serves as a field guide, with each chapter representing a method for describing and analyzing; learning about; or changing and managing a challenge or set of problems.The book is the first to cover in detail such a wide range of methods from so many different parts of the systems field.The book's Introduction gives an overview of systems thinking, its origins, and its major subfields. In addition, the introductory text to each of the book's three parts provides background information on the selected methods. Systems Concepts in Action may serve as a workbook, offering a selection of tools that readers can use immediately.The approaches presented can also be investigated more profoundly, using the recommended readings provided.While these methods are not intended to serve as "recipes," they do serve as a menu of options from which to choose.Readers are invited to combine these instruments in a creative manner in order to assemble a mix that is appropriate for their own strategic needs.

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