Systems Thinking is basically just a term coined to describe the act of taking the perspective that the world is made of systems, any given problem can be considered a systems problem.
This approach is apparently not common, or doesn’t seem to come to some people as naturally as it lines up with my standard way of thinking. The more I read about “systems thinking” the more it seems to confirm that my typical way of thinking about things is through a systems lens. I’m also sensitized to “systems thinkers” coming across as smug. So that’s fun.
Systems thinking is useful because common patterns/archetypes/principles show up in systems of all varieties.
Example of a common pattern across domains:
- From biology - the more highly specialized a species is, the less likely it will adapt to a new environment
- From computing - the more well-optimized a software is to a certain kind of database, the less easy it will be to adapt to a new one
For another example see - Horizontal and Vertical Approaches.