Developer.* has published Places To Intervene In a System by the late Donella Meadows, with an afterword by Don Gray applying the thinking to software devleopment. Thought-provoking stuff – Meadows herself cautions that the essay is not a recipe for finding leverage points. Rather it’s an invitation to think more broadly about system change.
In summary (original numbering scheme!), places to think about intervening:
Numbers
Material stocks and flows
Regulating negative feedback loops
Driving positive feedback loops
Information flows
The rules of the system
The power of self-organisation
The goals of the system
The paradigm or mindset out of which the goals, rules and feedback structure arose.
[ via Johanna Rothman]
