Systems are arrangements of building blocks, some of which complex systems, interacting to achieve some purpose. The world is a system, I am a system and the computer used to generate this document is a system. Some of the systems are man-made and some natural, yet they interact and influence each other in multiple ways. We often focus on limited arrangement such as a car and call it a system. We treat its surroundings: drivers, roads, parking places, oil refineries, as its environment.
When we develop systems, this separation between the system and its environment is only a strategy to alleviate complexity and remove responsibility. If we develop a car, our concerns focus on the car requirements, whether customers`, manufacturer`s or others. It required by customers, or forced by regulatory agencies, we also pay attention to the car influence on the environment, but by and large, this is not our primary focus. In many cases, in the past and today, the only focus was the system being designed. Disciplinary specialization and the increased complexity of system developed, in shorter time, with limited resources, have led to contemporary difficulties in taking a broader view of systems and their environments as systems, and designing them together.
In order to regain control over designing such complex systems with overarching consequences, a new approach is required. One that takes diverse stakeholders views into account, and creates the social and institutional setting to allow successful development.
This work reviews such an approach called the PSI framework, presents some examples of its use in analyzing situations and improving them.
