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As the analysis of the inventory data has shown, heavy statistical problems prevail already with those rather simple data: non-normality, lacking values, colinearity. Much worse is the situation with social data, especially those concerning income and wealth. A principal component analysis has been tried with the data gathered at Jebel Lawz. Especially the colinearity leads to the result, that this type of multivariate statistical analysis does not produce more insight than what is known already from field protocols. Factor analysis as well, a beautiful approach, shows the same problems. The large set of variables to be observed calls for large sets of data with the same cohesion. And for our case there are just not sufficient forests available!
In general it can be said that statistics is to be used when large sets of data are available to assess the relations between limited sets of independent and dependent factors. The case of FORESTRY IN YEMEN is a different one. It is not the question to find out how the majority of people behave. We want to know the few rare examples of still existing forests and of outstanding people that are planting trees. Such data have to be analysed in a different, qualitative way. As the main actors are people, a scientific, unequivocal, predictive model is anyhow not likely to be found.
So research starts with the problem of asking the right question:
Definition: Heuristics is the art to ask the right question in the right way, the art of invention, the art of establishing hypotheses' and models, a systematisation of the gift of invention and a systematic use of common sense.
Important is the word "right". The right question is the important, fitting, decisive question, leading to the "critical variables". The right way to ask the question is the understandable way, the connection of the question with the "common sense" (- a problem that will be dealt with in chapter "2.3.3 Sociology - Topics").
A special method of doing heuristics is morphology [
after Zwicky]: "Morphological research deals, as the name indicates, with forms and structural properties of problem-fields, e.g. fields of material objects. >Field< is here not used with its the mathematical-physical meaning, but with the meaning it has in modern logics, the one of phenomenons and fields of ideal terms."An up-to-date presentation of the method, Zwicky's Biography, detailed description of the analysis and even a tutorial is presented by the Swedish Morphological Society: e.g. Morphological Analysis - A general method for non-quantified modeling
The principal steps are:
1 A precise description and purposeful generalisation of the problem.
2 The determination and localisation of all the parameters that determine the solution.
3 The establishment of the morphological scheme or the morphological box out of which all solutions of the given problem can be peeled out without prejudgements.
4 The evaluation of all solutions on the base of a certain chosen, determined standard of values. A violation against this rule indicates the dominant influence of preconceptions.
5 The selection of the optimal solution and pursuance of such up to the final construction.
The advantages of the morphological approach are, that it:
- is totality-research, deducting without prejudgements all solutions of a given problem.
- develops its own method and uses among others the morphological box.
- targets wholistic solutions that are artistically, morally and logically extraordinarily satisfying.
- gives the security that nothing of importance has been forgotten.
- enhances the clarity of communication between people.
- establishes a common base for discussion.
The morphological approach is most often based on a strong will for action. This is as well expressed by the last two points mentioned up - communication and discussion, that are the core of solutions to social problems. "Social problems are very much harder than scientific ones" [Feynman, in ibid, p. 10:]. This is due to their complexity, but as well to their specific "contingency", the freedom of decision. In spite of the fact that "action" is far from science, it is the duty of scientists to give more consideration to social problems in general and to the impact of science upon society.
The holistic approach to problem solution that morphology is targeting is strongly grounded on intuition. It is in this respect related to art. As art it relies for "verification" of qualitative, verbal models, on "Gestalt" and communication.
Two Gestalt-principles may be used, the structural and the functional one. Structural "Gestalt-analysis" is most advanced (quantified) in the form of Morphometry [s. Herzog, M & Rotach, P.; Joliceur & Mosimann; Reyment]. For development research quantification of models is rarely of much use, especially not before the processes and functions are fully understood.
Definition 'Gestalt' [> German. Can be translated by: form, figure, shape - but neither of those terms fits precisely. The wholeness of 'Gestalt' is not contained in neither of them. So 'Gestalt' (or G.) will be used, as has been done in psychology (Ehrenfels) with the term: 'Gestalt-Theory'.]:
"The perceptible space-form of objects; assigned as well to psychic and historic-cultural things: Things, whose parts are determined out of the whole, in which all parts carry and condition each other; things, whose essential qualities can't be grasped by summing up the qualities of the parts; as beyond those the qualities of the G. are involved, as with the acoustical G. of a melody, beyond that its complex qualities (- feeling) too. The soul in its essence is disposed towards 'Gestalt'. Highly developed structures of awareness tend to closeness, unity, simplicity, regularity, symmetry and orientation to the preferred directions in space (vertical and horizontal), on smoothness of all curves, short on terseness, the optimum of wise creation in the sphere of the contemplative.
Formed G. are always partial wholes of the integral whole of the conscious, with the marks of the separation, they are structures closed in themselves, built of parts, more or less differing from each other, related to the whole. The contour, creating the G. can be characterised after the degree of contrast and the compactness or openness of the contour. The coherence of the parts of a G. (coherence of structure) can be loose or tight (...). After the sentence of the integral determination of the parts of a G., it can happen that, if a part, a place or an attribute of a whole is changed, all other parts, places or attributes change as well (s. micro-physics). Part of the description of a G. is the importance. The whole can be forceful, the parts unimportant, and the opposite. Areas of figure are always more important than the basic area. The importance can be arranged so, that there is an equal importance of parts (rare case, only visible with certain ornaments) or (mostly), that there is a hierarchical distribution of importances under a dominating G.: the whole is more or less centred (e.g. the G. of a human by his face, the face again by the eyes) respectively focused to a dominating final point (e.g. a tree by the crown). The parts of a G. show different ranks (e.g. in the circle: 1. the center, 2. a point on the periphery, 3. any point inside the circle), appear as main- and side-parts. Where the center is not fixed, its displacement can strongly change the character of the G., as e.g. the change of the main tone of an accord. Every G. has a G.center that appears as mass-center (...) or as anchor- resp. well- point (from where it seems to be built up, e.g.the base of a column) or as guiding point (e.g. the point of an arrow). From the fact, that the soul is oriented towards the formation of Gestalt, results the rule of the good G., that reads: "The awareness is always disposed to perceive the most simple, uniform, closed, symmetrical, after the main directions of space oriented (uba) ... Deviations of the good G. are first not perceived, but just after intense inspection (e.g. an almost equilateral triangle will be taken for equilateral, an almost right angle as a right angle aso, - term). Even there, where the human being is changing the physical reality, the intervention, if not just destructive, is done in a way, more or less conscious, that the perception is changed into the direction of a good or better G.
The relation to models and to the emergent quality of complex systems is obvious. The prospection for the Gestalt aspects in complex systems, the development of Gestalt in a model - that's where science and art meet. The greatest artist of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, was its greatest scientist as well. Even in physics and mathematics the "beauty" of the formula, its simplicity, its "Gestalt" aspect is (not the exclusive, but) a valuable argument. More prominent are those aspects in all sciences that have some relation to action, as medicine, engineering, pharmacy, landscaping and architecture: "Medicine is science and art at the same time. It is skill, based on knowledge, aimed at action and corresponds roughly with the Greek term "techne". In a larger sense this term subsumes everything what is human work, differing from nature, physis as quintessence of all what happens without human help." [Anderegg p. 30:]
Art is the active creation of aesthetic "objects", of "Gestalt".
The aesthetic thing, as the "Gestalt", is closed in itself, perfect, respectively a whole, a world for itself. It is a "unity of being and cognition, of truth, beauty and good." [Jaspers p. 208].
Jaspers differentiates between art as presentation of a certain ideal of beauty (aesthetics) and art as metaphysical code. Art as aesthetics wants shape ("Gestalt"). It is against the infinite relations of things, against the cryptic, the cloudy, against the floating. ... In it is truth as long as the code, in the aesthetical objectivation of the picture, is seen and read. It gets untrue, the code is lost in favour of non-committal contemplation of forms. Then life turns into view, the action into enjoyment of feelings. [
Jaspers p. 208:]For the non-commital form of contemplation aesthetics is a measure for beauty, for passive contemplation, for sensual entertainment only. The core element of "Gestalt" is lost. The same can happen to philosophy, spirituality and meaning. "The original philosophical thought is code. That can be seen excellently in the presocratic philosophy, but there it was methodologically unconscious. Always in philosophical thinking there is a backsliding from the code to the pure term. The seizing of the reality of being by thinking turns into pure thinking, philosophy into would-be science. The ambiguity of the code turns into unequivocalness of the terms. The eternity of the code, the developing and unterminable relations of thinking turns into the finiteness of the determined thought."[
ibid p. 1038:]Here again a warning against too narrow thinking. Systems analysis represents a further development of heuristics towards science. The following chapter tries to give a short summary on basics of systems, models and projects.
Definitions Systems-Analysis [
Willke p. 133:]:1. Thinking in systems-category means thinking in relations. Only this can prevent, that a part is taken for the whole, that from the change of one aspect linear changes of the whole are deduced. Especially the common error, that the improvement of the efficiency of a specific part or a special function of the system is going to increase the efficiency of the whole system can be mentioned here as an example. ...
2. The consideration of interrelations puts the systems-scientist into a fruitful dilemma: on one side he has to acknowledge, that everything is 'in a way' interrelated, that each system is embedded into a larger systems-interconnection; on the other hand the impossibility to consider all imaginable interrelations forces us to follow up intensely the question, how then the different systems levels are interconnected and how exactly the parts of a system interplay. And here it results, that in complex living systems the interconnection of parts and whole and so - as each whole can be again part of an other whole - the interconnection between systems of different levels is precisely not simple, linear and causal, but discontinuous, non - linear, counterintuitive and irreversible.
For social systems it has to be added, that there are negative and positive backfeedings: there is a connection in the sense of the self-fulfilling and self-destroying prediction; there are tight and loose connections, reactivities and broken contexts through different systems levels; there are certain trigger levels for indifference and "impulse causalities" (...) for booster processes ("trigger functions", (engl. in original) comp. von Bertalanffy 1979, s. 71); there are counterintuitive effects of combinations and on the other hand limitation of development through internal conditions of coordination and exclusion ("coordinative conditions" ... (engl. in orig.); and especially that does practically not exist, on what the "modern", natural-science oriented sciences base: clear and isolated cause-effect-relations.
3. The systems scientist is so dependent upon the reduction of the tremendous complexity of the potentially relevant relations - in a certain way: precisely not in the way of traditional natural-sciences, that pick out those variables, that can easily be measured; but in the way of a systems-adequate analysis of "critical variables" (uba). That means, that a systems analysis starts with the quest for variables, factors, components, functions or content of meaning, that are insofar relevant or representative for a certain system, as findings and statements that concern them do indeed allow for statements and findings concerning the overall system. Herbert Simon worded those requests in the very fitting term of "sensitivity analysis" (uba), so assigning the duty to the systems scientists, to find out those moments or relations, on which a system 'reacts', that are therefore of critical importance for the system.
4. Especially in view of the steering of complex systems the insight is central, that parts or processes present themselves differently in the analysis, do have different 'realities', respectively if they are isolated for themselves or in the dynamical interaction of the systems interconnection (...). The insight seems to be trivial, but whole research institutions of medicine, biology, psychology, sociology, politics can be named, that do not respect this principle. ...
5. The special thrill and the special difficulty of systems-theoretical work consists in that, what W. Weaver already before over 30 years called the phenomenon of organised complexity of living systems (comp. Weaver 1948). While the social sciences have to deal with that problem of organised complexity from the start, provided that they pursued useful and farsighted analysis - what exposed especially their best studies totally unjustified to the reproach of a pre-scientific stage - natural sciences only discovered gradually this difficult area of organised complexity (see last chapter on plant physiology). And it faces exactly the same epistemological and methodological problems, that so far seemed to be the domain of the social sciences. The methodological complex of inferiority of the social-sciences is so totally erroneous; the blind imitation of natural-science exactitude by artificial reduction of interrelations to a few variables is bare anachronism. As nowadays the quest of both sciences is to develop new instruments for the analysis of highly complex organic systems, be this biopolymeres, cells, organisations, groups or societies. And exactly this renders possible and asks for new forms of transdisciplinary teamwork, as it is exemplified in the generation and development of the general systems theory.
6. The analysis of phaenomena of organised complexity requires the breach of the epistemological ideal of simple causalities and regularities; and it requires that the methodologically glossed over reduction of complex interrelations to single, just measurable variables will be overcome. Required is the insight, that a "simple theory about phenomenons, that in their nature are complex (or - if this expression is preferred - has to do with higher organised phenomena) is most probably necessarily wrong." (von Hajek 1972, S. 16) What theories about systems of organised complexity should deliver, is to be formulated more carefully so: not the prediction of patterns of behaviour (pattern prediction engl. in original), interrelations of functions, problem-figures and development lines, whose knowledge only raises the probability, to be able to bring about certain events and results or to prevent them. Not methodologically perfect model building and algorythmisation, the always more exact grasping of irrelevant things, is the present requirement, but the transdisciplinary construction of a theory and method of analysis of complex organised systems. The base of such a theory and methodology can't be only the logic of cause-effect, but over that additionally the logic of complex systems.
"Structures absorb the risk of selective relationing of the elements; processes the risk of the indirectness of the relationing of elements. Otherwise formulated: Structures allow the system, only to realise certain patterns of selection in the combination of the elements and others, as well possible connection patterns, can be treated as irrelevant for the system. Processes allow the system to steer selectively the succession of interrelations following certain patterns and to produce a system specific time out of the difference between possible timely interreactions and actualised timely interreactions. [Willke p. 108] Sense oriented systems again can change their structures and processes, can reactivate and realise possibilities that have been excluded formally, but have been preserved virtually in the form of symbolic representations. This is considered as the emergentlevel of psychic and social systems. [
Willke p. 108:]Variability, the buffering capacity and the potential for change, for alternatives, are of utmost importance for any self-steering, self-developing (autopoietic) social system. Recommending simpler systems with less alternatives, just because the science has problems in dealing with complex systems, would be disastrous. Jeffers [
p. 1]: shows now in what aspect systems analysis helps reaching decisions and is so 'action oriented: "Contrary to the belief of many ecologists, systems analysis is not a mathematical technique, nor even a group of mathematical techniques. It is a broad research strategy that certainly involves the use of mathematical techniques and concepts, but in a systematic, scientific approach to the solution of complex problems. As such, it provides a framework of thought designed to help decision-makers to choose a desirable corse of action, or to predict the outcome of one or more desirable courses of action that seem desirable to those who have to make decisions." That brings us much closer to "operations research" and steering!The point of the critical variable (s. up No 3), here called 'unanticipated factor' is emphasised by Jeffers [
ibid p. 6:], as well as the need for a unifying concept - here especially in ecology: [ibid p. 9:] "Then again, the present state of ecology as a science, with its extremely scattered research efforts over a wide field, urgently needs a unifying concept. Not only is there a marked incompatibility of the many existing theories, but the weakness of the assumptions themselves have never been stated." On the problem of the lacking logic of complex systems and the acceptance of 'emergent qualities', Willke [Willke p. 100:] claims: "In opposition to the still ruling mechanistic-atomistic philosophy of life of many natural scientists and would-be natural scientists, the acceptance of emergent qualities of systems in different stages of development is still a scientific revolution. It is difficult to follow this revolution in thought, especially because just and only complex systems form emergent qualities - but the analysis of complex systems in still in its beginning. Still it creates immense conceptual and methodological problems to grasp complex systems as a whole, therefore to work out that, what makes them only to systems of a certain identity. Two variables can be treated quite well with the given methods. Everything what goes over three variables creates quite some difficulties even to natural scientists. The analysis of living complex systems should cover analytically and treat thirty or more variables! The physiologist and nobel-prize holder A. Szent-Giörgyi describes the situation fittingly: When I joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton) I did this in the hope that by rubbing elbows with those great atomic physicists and mathematicians I would learn something about living matters. But as soon as I revealed that in any living system there are more than two electrons, the physicists would not speak to me. With all their computers they cold not say what the third electron might do. So that little electron knows something that all the wise men of Princeton don't, and this can only be something very simple." (quote in engl. original).
The following memos [
Hill 1992 in Böhm et al p. 22:] are helpful in the delimitation and examination of systems:| - Systems are dynamic wholes. - Systems consist of parts that are interrelated and are interfering. - The behaviour of a system consists in the interaction of its parts. - The properties of a system are not only the sum of its parts. - What we consider as system and what as elements depends on our (subjective) perception. - By intentional change of the level of observation we can analyse a system or integrate it into a larger whole. - The limits of a system with its surrounding system (its environment) are not given, but have to be constructed intellectually. - Systems are open towards their surrounding system (their environment) and do interrelate with it. [There are no closed systems without interaction with the environment.[ - The behaviour of a system can only be understood if it is seen intellectually in relation with the surrounding system, as a part of a more integral system." A system border is so a more or less arbitrary delimitation between systems. [ Böhm p. 6:] To find the right systems border, respectively systems delimitation is made more difficult because of two opposing tendencies [ibid p. 8:]:- The larger the limits of the system to be studied are drawn, the bigger the efforts needed to analyse the elements, relations and factors. - On the other hand one has to take into consideration, that too narrow delimitations will limit, even make impossible, the detection of further solutions and potential interventions. It is the way of reflection, the standpoint of the observer that determines which totality of elements will be understood as system. The general rules are [ ibid p. 9:]:- That the number of relations of elements inside the system should be larger than those between the system and its environment (principle of "dominance of internal relations"). - and that the cuts between system and environment are placed in such a way that the cuts are few and simple. |
Defining and establishing social systems does not only create efficient organisms/organisations - but it excludes as well. In the early stages of the institutionalisation of the state, sheer power was used to control knowledge: "Those 'other' cultures have been base on a knowledge, that was opposed to the quest for monopoly in knowledge by the modern state, that has reproduced itself in non-governmental social contexts, as well the closed religious tradition, the knowledge of the Jews, as well as the knowledge of the women. This knowledge has not only been empirical, but as well moral knowledge in the form of mystical knowledge. It is a different "moral" knowledge, that has been handed down here and that got effectiveness in the present." [
Eder (on Foucault) p. 210:]A science that restricts its field strictly to the visible or even 'measurable' matter, loses a lot of knowledge in the mystical - mythical field. Just regard the wonderful cognitive part in the Gilgamesh-Epos concerning the eternal live! No science could express it better up to now. (s. chapter 5.6)
A practical problem in social development is created by selection of personnel for companies and institutions. The limited number of functional and operational factors that hierarchically dominate other considerations risks to turn such organisations, that are still basically "social" organisations, into productive machineries: "So people are elements of organisations. But out of the abundance of possible humans the organisation "creates" the organisation-man, that is adapted to the functions of organisations. Who things this statement is cynical should have a look around in an organisation." [
Willke p. 108:]
The following axioms might easily be derived from the definition of cognition (s. chapter 2):
A) Models are always models of something, namely images and so representations of certain natural or artificial originals, that again can be models. Such originals shall all be called systems.
B) Models do not cover all qualities of the original systems represented by them, but only those, that seem relevant to the respective model builders and - users. But the knowledge of all qualities of the original as well as of the model is a condition. Model building is a creative act, is art, depends on a fair amount of intuition.
C) Models are not unequivocally attached to their originals per se. They do only fulfill their representation- and replacement function for certain subjects and limited to certain intellectual or "factual" operations and inside certain time lags.
Structural Classification of Models:
- word models (semantic m.)
- mathematical / technical models
- deterministic m.
- stochastic m.
- dynamic m.
- compartment m.
- matrix m.
- multivariate m.
- optimisation m.
Functional Classification:
Expressive Models:
- descriptive
- prognostic
Prospective Models may be:
- Operative
- Normative
The most developed prognostic models are empirical theories.
Under operative models we understand those prospective, action-oriented, "exemplary" models, that allow for aim-oriented change of the environment by the operational subjects". To those belong the "planning models" in an extended sense as well as decision models and especially so called strategies, as they are established on scientific level for the modern management, but as well for other operational fields. The normative models contain rules of behaviour for human groups in the field of social interaction." [
ibid p. 46:]Both are connected by the term steering. Operative models are geared towards a planed, wanted output - normative models define and set up such wanted output.
Definition Cybernetics (from the Greek kybernetike [techne], "helmsman's-art" in general the methodology of principles of steering, control, regulation, and programming of processes of all kind; especially the theory of self-regulating natural processes and machines. Transfer of information. The true philosophical meaning of cybernetics consists in the discovery of transgressing principles that proof to be methodologically unifying and partially of general validity in all disciplines, whose objectives are regulation and information processing and which can be solved by mathematics (information theory). An investigation of the category - steering, that would produce the essential starting point for a philosophical substantiation of c., has not yet come."
Def. Steering: Intentional setting of direction, a category only developed in our century, that - even as connected with the categories movement and action - can't be found with Aristoteles, nor in a late ontology or system of categories. While movement and action are conditioned each by a direction, respectively aim (aim orientation), the procedure of intentional setting of direction, as well in natural events as in the domain of human actions, has so far never been interpreted out of general principles of the possibility of steering, until cybernetics, first at technical constructions, pointed to it. Compared with the causally determined directions of mechanical processes of all kind, we look at regular, repetitive processes in more complicated - mostly organic - structures as proceeding regular in the sense, as conditioned by the character of construction of those structures; or we deduct the steering of such processes from deeper lying, "pre-programmed" dispositions and mechanisms, as such knowledge is nowadays among others produced by the molecular biology. It showed, that fully automated electronical constructions of the modern technique as well as organical structures and such in the whole human sphere are capable of autonomous steering out of the interaction of all incoming information data, that is not a mechanical causal process, but that each further step is decided upon on base of the momentaneous information processing; under those aspects human actions are interpreted as decided and steered by the will, what might serve as a new start for a novel theory of awareness.
Combined Models [
Willke p. 3:]1. Structural-Functional: Certain structures are assumed as needed. What does the system have to undertake to preserve those.
2. System-Functional: Structures are looked at as variable. Changing environmental conditions can change structures.
3. Functional-Structural: Environment is looked at not only as causal, but rather as constitutive factor for systems establishment. System as a variable.
4. Functional-Genetic: Emphasis on processual aspects of systems establishment, of the stabilisation between inside and outside, the need of delimitation.
5. Self-referential systems: The complex system as a problem for itself, that tries trough reflexion, now at the core independent from environmental influences, to develop and steer itself (complex social systems).
2.2.4 Epistemology of Systems Analysis:
The Neo-pragmatic movement continuing the thought of Pierce rediscovers the anthropological prime function of science as an instrument of human mastering of existence. [
Stachowiak p. 434:]: "Each way that leads to a theory useful for practical coping with existence is allowed. The principles of research, especially the one of causality, don't appear as intangible "abstract authorities", but as heuristic conditioning of scientific operations, that following their operational functionality are kept, refined or changed 1). On the other hand it is indifferent, which criteria the scientific theory fulfills beyond the pragmatical criteria of utility, if only that one is fulfilled. Exactly in that case ... the theory makes aim-oriented, planned action possible. ... This pragmatical term coincides with the one of the predictability through the theory, totally in the sense of the relation of the pragmatical with the empirically oriented positivist concept. But here we have to make an important difference. If this predictability can be proofed through so called empirical verification, in the end in reference to not further reducible perceptive experience, seems indeed questionable. Much speaks well for it that only the objectivity of an intersubjective taking-for-objective can be reached. 2)Operative models, among them development projects, need a strong integration into the existing (functional-structural to self-referential) social context as their base is not causality but locally meaningful aims:
1) The basic heuristic principle for the establishment of models is, I repeat: "Gestalt", an integral approach.
2) The main principle of verification of models is dialogue.
Problems and the search for potential solutions
Definition [
Böhm; Fuchs; Pacher p. 23:]: What in fact is a problem. ... Awareness, that the available knowledge is not sufficient to manage a duty, that itself is called problem; for that often called "knowing of what is not known." "The problem is the starting point of questions."Huxley said: Who defines a problem has solved it. That is the approach and probably erroneous belief of modern sciences. Goethe was much more realistic, saying: "The solution of a problem is a new problem." The standard procedure of science shows, that the result of most research reports is the call for more research.
Systems oriented problem solving has to correct the following errors of thinking by the corresponding memos [
ibid Abb. 1.22: Merkmale des Problemlösens]:
| error of thinking | memo |
| Problems are objective, they only have to be formulated more clearly | - take into consideration the perspective of the observer - assume different standpoints and discriminate - rethink a situation over and over and get an understanding as multiple as possible |
| Each problem is a direct consequence of a single cause | - draft networks and grasp them - grasp and analyse relations, interactions and circuits - understand the properties of networks and their wholeness |
| To understand a situation a "photography" of the present situation is sufficient | - grasp stabilising and destabilising relations, interactions and circuits - analyse strength, meaning and qualitative properties of relations, interactions and circuits - integrate the time aspects of a situation into the considerations |
| Behaviour can be predicted; just a sufficient information base is needed | - get sensitive for the potential behaviour of the system - develop potential future "patterns" or scenarios - think about chances and dangers, as well strengths and weaknesses of the different contexts and evaluate |
| Problematic situations can be "controlled", its only a question of expenditure | - the aspects that can be (or can't be) steered, out of the perspective of the observer, have to be carefully elicited - the connections with other factors described - strategies designed that are meaningful and "make sense" (create sense) inside the given context |
| A manager (wire-puller) is able to solve any problem and to adopt solutions practically | - the rules of the tackled system have to be observed - the forces and specific properties of the system should be used - have the right thing happen at the right time at the right place |
| With the introduction of the problem solution the problem can be filed | - the situation and its development have to be observed - problem solutions have to be designed as flexible as possible. They have to be capable of learning - be sensitive and creative for weak signals of new problem-situations |
The request, that the solution of partial problems has always to be done in the framework of the system [
ibid p. 26:], as the focus on weak signals, the observation of processes over time, is typical for change management (s. 3.2). Systems thinking is taken not only as a tool to understand complex systems, but as well as a tool to form such systems.Systems analysis is fully aware, that present systems depend on historical development and will be the base for future systems.
- "The manner of thinking and acting depends upon the way the world is seen and understood. The human being has the capacity, without technical help, to perceive only a small, determined sector of reality.
- Systematic or even better holistic thinking is based on a targeted manner to perceive the environment, the systems as well as their components and relations and to describe them with appropriate models." [
ibid p. 30:]
From Thinking to Action, from Models to Projects
Projects show the following common traits [ibid p. 95-96:]:
- Projects are complex schemes.
- They overstep the normal form of organisation. They represent singular schemes and not repetition of earlier work.
- Projects should generate a certain, precise result.
- Projects are limited in time with a starting and an ending point.
- The boundaries between the phases can be clearly delimited by the formal request for permissions at the beginning and/or "milestones" at the end of the preceding process.
- Projects are connected with incertitude concerning time and costs. ...
- Projects may cause threatening effects, if information and organisation are not good, as they do change the present situation (social stability).
- Projects are integral (embracing, interdisciplinary, ...)
So its not only social forestry that changes the social environment, its probably an effect of all projects.
The four following ways are characteristic for situation analysis [ibid p. 111:]
- the systems oriented view
- the causality oriented view
- the solution oriented view
- the future oriented view
So in addition to the factual complexity there are a multitude of views. It should be clear up to now, that project development is not a matter that can be dealt with in a purely technocratic way - as from the start the individual, and the culturally determined local views have a decisive influence on cognition as well as on motivation and decision making. So each project, even the best one, developed with all possible participation, is on the first hand a "shot into the dark". It will be unavoidable that corrections and learning have to take place. Most often projects, even pilot projects, are seen as models that should be overtaken and continued by the "receivers". Those that should learn are the "receivers" - only rarely the project organisers, the donors - what is substantially wrong. The idea of prototyping [
ibid p. 130:] should be used more often and more efficiently. Prototyping is a method of systems development, where early in a pilot project a first simple version is realised to gain experience with important, but as well open, fields. Prototypes are different from models, as the latter only depicts reality. Prototyping is research work and learning by doing, as the three main tipes show:- explorative prototyping
- experimental "
- evolutionary "
"To organise prototyping efficiently, only those functions should be considered, that are relevant for reaching given targets. ... In the vertical prototyping some functions (or parts of it) of the system that has to be developed are completely implemented. This is interesting in the case that detail-questions have to be cleared. ... In the framework of horizontal prototyping, prototypes are developed that contain all functions of the later user system, but in a simplified form. ... If a prototype is used, containing as horizontal prototypes all functions, but only some of them in complete form, then we speak about diagonal prototyping." [
ibid p. 136:] The duty of the developer is, to elicit a founded critique of the prototype from the user, molded by subjective impressions. From this one can see, that the success of the prototyping project depends largely on the ability to communicate of all project participants. [ibid p. 139:]
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