Problem Solving: Chesterton Fence and System Thinking

 

Chesterton and Cabrera

I am a big proponent of leveraging learnings from different fields and apply them for Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). In today's post, I have picked up insights from - GK Chesterton, a well-known English writer, philosopher, and critic & cognitive scientist - Derek Cabrera.

For starters here are some views of Chesterton from his book "The Thing"

"There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it." 

The simplification of anything is always sensational, and the rewards of simplifications are directly proportional to the complexity of the problem. Along with all of the modern tools for business process engineering and optimization, this simple yet complex logic comes in handy. The emphasis is not on making reforms, and tear things down because one doesn't understand the use of it, this pushes us for a detailed analysis of understanding why that process is put in the first place. 

For the second piece of the puzzle: To optimize business processes or identify solutions to complex or even wicked problems - we can apply System Thinking. Per Derek Cabera's, System Thinking approach, we can break down a problem using the DSRP (Distinction, System, Relationship, and Perspective) model. System thinking is a multi-level deep approach, at times we just hit the top of the iceberg!

Level 1: We see an Event and we React

Level 2:  We identify Patterns and we Predict

Level 3: We formulate System Structure and we Design

Level 4: We create our Mental Models and we Transform 

If we go beyond that, we balance system and thinking to identify patterns of thought, and structure of thoughts. That's when we should be able to understand the gap between the mental model and what's happening in the real world to validate our hypothesis.

Inefficiencies arise because of a gap between the mental model of the problem and how things actually work. Witnessed this first hand a few times, for instance, our consulting firm was hired to fix the "solution" created by another consulting firm who had spent over three months optimizing the solution for the client. As part of integration "optimization", they checked how many integrations were not triggered in the past two years, the number was about 10%. Without further investigation, those integrations were deleted. A few months later, the client realized Some of those integrations were supporting failover, and others were background maintenance processes. Goes without saying all the optimization effort went down the drain and the system was restored back to the old state before they called us for rescue. 

Lots of information can make us informed but a lot of thinking makes us smart. Structure problems like Cabrera and keep Chesterton alive.

Cheers!
Rahul S.

Citations:

1. https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSRP