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Murshid Markan

Alcatel-Lucent

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Systems approach a boon or a bane when dealing with situations when decisions are needed on urgent basis.

Systems approach start the process with a hierarchical and segmental approach but when the decision are urgent then do we actually align our work with systems approach while being quick in response.

Topics: Lean six sigma Quality systems thinking
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    Debra Smith 200+

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    Jul 21 2012: I feel that it is crucial that we all choose to act rather than react and we need a certain amount of knowledge and an approach to make that happen so this is where i think systems theory might fit in.
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    Robert Winner 50+

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    Jul 10 2012: Boon. Military, police, emergency personnel, doctors, nurses, firfighters, etc ... all undergo ridgid training. When an emergency occurs your training kicks in and accepts and rejects options and a line of action takes effect. Without a systematic approach lives would be placed in danger and the situation would grow out of control.

    As an example. During a nuclear incident a strict protocol is followed. Decisions are needed on an urgent basis but the consequences of bad decisions are not acceptable.

    In a manner of speaking the brain runs a systems approach or checklist millions of times a day. Broken glass is sharp and will cut ... fire will burn you ... don't touch the stove .... don't pet the skunk, etc.... Yep that is a boon.

    All the best. Bob.
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      Debra Smith 200+

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      Jul 21 2012: IN a small personal illustration, even my swimming lessons clicked in for me in an emergency. I was just a teenager who loved to swim and who took lessons when i ended up in a bizzarre boating incident in the Trent canal system. Two houseboats went through a lock and the adults (who were poor swimmers) decided we would all swim in the middle of the lake we had entered. Somehow the lock behind us broke mid swim and unknowingly I was swimming back to the other boat to bring another child in for a swim. I had to really dig to get back to that boat and when I climbed up I realized everyone was caught in a terrible undertow and that no help would get to them from shore in time. That only left me an my training in life saving but it utterly clicked in. With 8 people widely spread in the water, I started the boat I was on with no hope of getting everyone. I picked up the closest person first (and believe me I would have left him until last without my training and he laid in the boat and did not help me. -it took me until a couple of years ago to realize he was probably exhausted), i then picked his son who was the next closest and then went to the furthest pont to pick up my parents who were clearly drowning and were sinking the inner tube that they had betwen them, then the man's wife and daughter and finally my sisters - the ones my heart wanted first but knew that they at least knew how to swim. They are all alive today and I was so excited to know that without the training of my local yokle Y that i would never have seen that outcome.
      This has formed the foundation of a saying that comes to mind in every crisis of my life: Stay in the boat! Your inclination, if you are one who want to help, is to get into the trenches or the water and pull someone out but if I had chosen that we all would have died. So if you stay in the boat you have all you need to help yourself and anyone else from a dry place.
      I am supporting Bob. Good point about training mking such a difference

  • Barry Palmer 50+

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    Jun 30 2012: As a person who used to design systems, it appears to me that your question offers a false choice

    Systems that are well designed provide for every situation. Protocols for urgent decisions are a routine part of system design. If you have experience with systems where this was not the case, it is no wonder. Today, systems are often designed by managers who have had only minimal systems education and little or no experience designing real world systems. I could give a complete lecture on why business and society should value professional system design, but today it would fall on deaf ears.

  • Dan Geurin 10+

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    Jun 29 2012: If you are on a ship that is rapidly sinking, the systems approach has limted applications. If there are too many details and too many strands of data, you could be under water before you find the most logical way to get off the boat safely :)
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    Fritzie Reisner 100+

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    Jun 22 2012: When you are working in an area familiar to you, if you have prepared yourself by understanding well the system you are dealing with, the variables that matter greatly and those that matter little or seldom, you can often engage thought about the whole system quickly and act quickly.
    Most of the decisions we make in a day are pretty mundane, though, and routine. You might know a particular food makes you sick every time, even if you don't understand why. So you don't eat it, or you do and accept the consequences.
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