In Search of Systems “DNA"

Abstract

General Systems Theory (GST) has been an attempt to put precision into the term system thereby making intelligent communication between its users more attractive, something that provides for migration of ideas and the possible resolution of issues by borrowing solutions from unfamiliar domains. We propose to build on GST and in particular, as von Bertalanffy once did, draw on the biological sciences, now hugely advanced beyond that ever imagined by von Bertalanffy and his peers, and use its findings, architectures and emergent behaviors, to argue for a biology of technology and enterprise systems. We do so by expanding on a system of “togetherness characteristics” and in particular explain how these can be applied to better understand familiar systems, e.g. the automobile, and how such systems form part of diverse wider communities (or containing systems). We seek a science and approach that we believe will provide richer insight into system failure, 'health' maintenance, repair, replication, growth, and mutation, all those features of the evolution of systems which constantly challenge us and which thus far we have only been able to explain via macro-level models and tools. We propose to go deeper into the structure of these systems and to discover the DNA (building blocks) of these systems. Thus establishing a foundation to understand their behavior using biological analogies which we believe will turn out to be more than metaphors. We assert that these systems have micro-structures which will explain their individual life cycle and their communal ecology.