Systems thinking and practice

What is systems thinking and practice? The essence of systems thinking and practice is in 'seeing' the world in a particular way, because how you 'see' things affects the way you approach situations or undertake specific tasks. This free course will help you to learn about the problems of defining a system and meet some of the key concepts used in systems theory: boundary, environment, positive and negative feedback, etc.

• Introduction
• Learning outcomes
• 1 How to use this course
• 1 How to use this course
• 2 What is this systems thing about?
• 2 What is this systems thing about?
• 3 Ways of thinking
• 3 Ways of thinking
• 3.1 Logical thinking
• 3.2 Causal thinking
• 3.3 Reductionist thinking
• 3.4 Holistic thinking
• 3.5 Multiple partial views
• 3.6 Perspectives
• 3.7 Distinguishing worldview from perspective
• 3.8 Summary
• 4 Systems thinking
• 4 Systems thinking
• 4.1 Thinking in systems
• 4.2 Summary
• 5 Types of systems
• 5 Types of systems
• 5.1 Definition of a system
• 5.2 The language of systems
• 5.3 Summary
• Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgements