 We are used to seeing events and decisions in our daily lives, if you look at newspapers, tweets, Facebook posts, whatever it is, they mainly highlight all the events that is happening around and newspapers and news channels highlight various decisions that has been taken, in response to events or anticipation of some events or things like that, but that has been the primary focus, how we have been looking at things, where it is things are happening like a discrete set of events that has been happening and everything is in news for some time after it disappears from our radar, some other news catches on, so that kind of view we call it as an event oriented view, where the focus is on only one particular few events and few decisions often seen as being disconnected with each other, like even in newspapers there are so many articles that is going on, but when we read it, we read it like it is all different events, it has nothing to do with each other, some may be rightly so, some may be not we are not really sure, but we do not look at things in that fashion, we look at things as disparate set of events that is happening at different places with different people for different problems or actions, but in a systems view point what we encourage to do is to look at what is called as these patterns of behavior, what we mean by that is we want to see how things are evolving over time, so it is not just a disconnect set of events, but the things are actually changing over time, so that aspect is what we call as patterns of behavior that we are interested in, whether things are going to be improving or things are slowing down or is it just in a happening in a cyclic pattern, so those are the things that we want to understand and discover, of course for more long lasting efforts what we want to do is try to influence the system structure itself, so in a systems theory or in a systems view point, we will come to understand that system structure is what is going to drive the behavior of the system which in turn is going to cause various events may be sporadic events or regular events, periodic events whatever it is, but it is underlying system structure that is driving these behaviors which in turn is causing all these events, so if you want to actually leverage for a long lasting change, we need to start looking at system structure, understand the structure and try to influence the structure itself, may be through policy design or may be through appropriate setup of the system structures, while if you are going to keep reacting to the events and decisions then our leverage point will be very low because we are only solving that particular problem in that particular instance, but the problem has not gone away, it may come back much later, may be not to you, may be to somebody else, so this can be actually classified like this also, like when we are actually looking at events and decisions, they are said to be reactive, if you are looking at patterns of behavior then we are being adaptive as one simple example of behavior that could be the rainfall patterns based on the rainfall that is occurring, we know it is going to happen every year, we do not know exactly when it is going to happen, we do not know exactly what date, how much quantity, but come on soon season we are all prepared, we get our raincoats, we get our umbrellas etc, we are prepared to handle it, it is a kind of adaptive behavior that we exhibit, but if you want to really result in lasting change then we need to look at generating these behaviors by influencing the system structure, so that is what we are going to be doing in this course, how we how to do this is by distancing ourselves away from these events, just far enough that the events start to blur and we start to see the patterns and the behaviors that happen over time and that is one, second one is we want to see various other components that is also there in the system and how they are being linked to each other, so we want to move away from this discrete events view or a view that there are events that are happening in discrete points in time, disconnect with each other to a view where multiple things are being connected and how the behavior is changing over time, so that is pretty much what we were going to do, now let us see how we have been solving problems, traditionally we are very comfortable in this what is called as open loop thinking, where we come up with first identify some problem, then gather data, evaluate alternatives, select solution, implement, so this is true in not only in student projects, but also in real life, people want to make new district administration come, new government come, they always try to list a set of problems and say ok, what is the best we can do about it and then suggest a solution, the solution need not always be the optimum solution or the fair solution, but some solution gets implemented and then it gets implemented, sometimes even evaluation etc also does not happen, improvement may not happen, so that is a typical open loop thinking that we do, especially when dealing with solving things which are not connected with one cell, I will come to it in a minute, for an extension of that is this event oriented view, we just saw that there are events and decisions happening, so that means there is already some situation that has arise and we have in our mental picture there is some goal for the system, this is how it should be and this is where we are, ok there is a gap, ok the gap is perceived as a problem that has occurred, ok now how to solve the problem, let us take some decision which will affect it and then we expect that the result should happen, many times that result may not be what we want, right or it may not be lasting long enough to result in a sustained change in addressing the problem completely, like for example if the goal is to say there should not be any let us say hungry people in the city, ok there is a problem that is the situation is there are so many people who are without access to good food, ok and the goal is that everybody should have good food or complete nutritious meal, problem is identified, you can start a massive campaign and you can cook and do meals to everybody, it will address the problem today or for this round, but people going to get hungry in the evening then they are going to get hungry tomorrow day after, so how do we ensure that they are going to get nutritious meal every day continuous, suddenly the problem becomes much more difficult because it is not just not question of ok they have so much meals let us just cook it and start giving people, it becomes little more complex because it is not just a there is no such what can I say, technical solution to all the problem especially when you consider economic, social, environment kind of issues, let us suppose put yourself in a situation imagine you become some mid-level manager, many of you lose your hair you cannot help it, you are a manager you are nicely whatever, whatever job, dream job we are working there for last 15 years we are 840s, then what do you do, there are so many problems and so many issues that is coming up every day and based on whatever data you have, whatever information you have you have to take a decision and through the decision what you are going to do is, you are going to solve the problem, you are going to push the decision away, you are good you have to push the problem away by doing an appropriate decision and you will be evaluated for that and probably you get rewards, management will promote you, yes you have nicely solved the problem, sales was down, now you have got a rapid improvement in the sales, it affected my this quarter's profit, so you are going to get your nice rewards and nice what can I say, dinner treats and fly to various conference and even headquarters etc etc, so you do you do enjoy the outcomes that arise out of decisions that you made and that is what makes you a manager and you like what you are doing, but sometimes after whatever it happened could at some point in future to go all the way around and hit you, but this happens repeatedly, this happens repeatedly and people are finding it difficult to learn from this, why, in this figure what we are trying to see is what are the decisions that you are taking today can have something of an impact later, we know in our mind it is going to happen, but we still do not learn from it as much as we are supposed to do, why is that, why do you think it is, you are not aware of the system, what else, what else, limited information, we made the decisions keeping short term objectives in mind or short term goals in mind or short term rewards in mind without worrying about the long term consequences of what it could lead to or what it may lead to, that is good, that is great, what else, nothing else, adding to that when you say short term and long term inherently what we are addressing is that there is some sort of a delays as soon as they start making decision it does not come back immediately, there is a long delay before things all the consequences of decisions come out, even if you want to gather data they will take some time, so we are taking decision and what all it has implications and everybody has to react accordingly and then it has to come back, so after delay there could be a feedback on the system, but sometimes it need not come back to you, you already taken nice decision you got promoted, so somebody else will be sitting there, so that also may discourage you to say okay it will be somebody else's problem, I have done it, I have done a good job, but unfortunately that fellow will be in a bigger mess and you will be in a position to evaluate the person and that person cannot even tell you that he is in the mess because of your decision two months earlier, he has to answer to you and why is this company is in a mess, so feedbacks focus on short term goals rather than longer term or short term rewards rather than long term goals and delays within the system can prevent us from understanding or learning from this as much as we can, and some other points was covered saying we are not aware of the full system structure, so we do have that short term focus, delays, feedbacks, unintended consequences, unanticipated consequences, so you are not aware, I do not know a system structure, but unfortunately that just cannot continue now, it is not my fault, there is a common adage, if at all it is you had made a decision, so but how much can we consider that we will see, maybe there could be some counterintuitive behavior and policy resistance came to nice decision, but unfortunately people resisted that change, that is called as policy resistance or you thought something will happen, but you know the behavior is counterintuitive to what was expected, these are reasons where and the delays and feedbacks makes it little more difficult for us to learn if you do not do it in a very systematic fashion, so what we are going to do in system thinking, let us try to do a bit of system thinking, popular Chinese proverb, you might have seen it, give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, you would have many of you must have heard it, is this adequate, if you teach a man to fish, nice technical skill that has been given to this person, is it sufficient so that he earns his livelihood for a lifetime, let us see, let us just go with me here, you taught a man to fish, question is, is this adequate, what are other things that can affect him to solving this feed for a lifetime, what are other things that can affect him, you know row board, okay, so more technical skills, what you are saying is other technical skills, okay, what else, if you know where fishes are fishing grounds, what else, okay, so let me just write environment here, let me just put climate, this is, yeah, tell me, okay, now we are getting somewhere, now we are getting somewhere, where all can you face competition, competition from fisherman, competition from big business, right, you taught him to fish but then huge business that has come and he has put huge boats and ships and trawlers and I know all the fishes are more so much inland, so much offshore that it becomes difficult, so big business can give competition, other fisherman similar to him can give competition, what else can affect, what about owners, in banks, you have a large water body and there is land around it, so people can just buy off their private property and prevent you access from going there, right, it is not very aesthetically nice to see people going and fishing, I want to come lake with nice views, right, okay, it can happen, so that is again a competition for you to do it, what else, now we are getting somewhere, price of fish, let me put it under market, selling price of fish, what can happen to demand, let us just keep it both ways, boom or bust, maybe there is a huge growth of suburban or city or whatever, the population then nearby areas and demand for fish increase, they are big, supporting a business or maybe demand fell down, they will stop eating fish for whatever reasons, maybe demand went down, we do not know that, right, demand can be either way, there could be other things also, like for example, maybe government coming with policies to promote let us say fish processing units, fish processing units, meaning small units, so that means that increase your demand, so you can get the fishes and tend it, what else, now we are getting somewhere, sustainability of the business, how that happens in the fish breeding cycles, what you are only referring to is can be captured under fish breeding cycles, like how much fish is there and all that, okay, let us put, what is happening to our powai lake, you have passed through it so many times, pollution that can affect the marine life, that can prevent you from engaging in fishing business, but what happens in Viharlik, Viharlik also people do not fish, because water is used for drinking or some cases suppose it is somewhere, water can be sent away for irrigation, so it is diverted, then it prevents, like one of the reasons where dams are being discouraged in the rivers is one, it will affect the flow of, say for example, even the sand, as well as it is going to prevent the movement of fish, so if traditionally fishermen were along the coast and near the delta region, they are going to get severely affected if the flow of freshwater is getting stopped and getting diverted for irrigation other purposes, right, so it is, what else, what else, anything on social, maybe this is social and cultural norms which dictates who can actually fish, you cannot train, you may not be able to train anybody and everybody to go and fish, there may be some cultural norms on who can actually go and fish or when they can fish, everything need not be driven in a very, what can you say, based on as it is fish breeding cycles are checked and based on, it need not happen, it is based on cultural and social norms, it can happen, yeah, local cuisine, so that can, why do you put it, market or social, I will just write it there, yeah, maybe it is abundant in one type of fish, but that is not consumed locally and you are unable to export, so policies can export, process imports, maybe imported fishes are cheaper, it is going to affect your competition or maybe you are going to fishing and you need to export market, maybe there is huge demand, so that is also good for you, yeah, so all are listening, so I do not know what is alternate to fish, but let us write alternate, I will just put alternate, anyway, so now you got an idea, right, it is, we are all, I think all are engineers, at least engineers by training, most of you would have done bachelor's engineering, we have been used to looking at a problem in one way, and okay, and find a solution to it, and a technical problem, okay, I need to increase employment, there is a nice opportunity, statistic shows that India needs for beneficiary man, let us start training as many fishermen as possible, that need not be sufficient, as if we are expecting them to understand all these things and operate at the level of your training, it also may not be possible, but we must teach people with capacity so that they can adapt and change and improve, because we do not know how these things are going to come, some places they may competition, some may be not, some may, they may have market, some may not have market, so there has to be opportunities and facilitation to be done, so that we can look at it in a more systemic viewpoint, so that we can identify the correct leverage point and attack there, is it because of policy issues that is happening, or is it because demand is not there, is it because of export restrictions, is it because of a lot of big businesses that is there, trying to understand the cause is always required before we can start teaching people to fish. And expect that they are going to get their lifetime, they set for life only based on this technical skill that has been provided, that alone is not enough. If we are say for example, building a bridge or building this building, the steps are known, maximum it can be get is delayed because of various reasons, but we know, okay, first we ought to make a big hole, play the foundations and then sequentially things come, you do not do the electrical wiring first, you get the civil structures in place and then work it out, you get the designs in place and then you know the sequence, you know what is going to happen. So that is we are sure, but if when you come to social, economic or political system, we do not even know what are all the elements that are there, so it is difficult for us to sequence them. Take your own life, was it completely according to plan? Like when you were young itself you wrote, this is what I am going to do, this month, next month, next year, next decade, everything is laid out, maybe your parents I do not know, but whatever it is, it did not happen, we are all here not by design or not by your plan which was done long ago, it was not a linear way, this is what I have to do, let me do all these things in sequence, it is never is. But what you did was you adapted based on opportunities presented, challenges presented and your own broad goals that you have in your life, you adapted to the current opportunities, current challenges and made decisions and then moved on with your life, or moving on with your life. So when it is true for us and we are going to be designing systems and solutions which is affecting not just, what can I say, even to build a bridge or build a building, it is not just building the building, people are going to use it, it is going to stay there. So it is also going to interact with that environment, you know it is going to consume water and electricity and people are going to come in and out. There are so many buildings in Mumbai where I am sure you all feel that building is so nice, everything is nice but the approach, the 1 kilometer before the building is so narrow and congested that it cannot support the thousands of people who are living in the building for example. And the building is also contributing to that traffic jam and other things that is happening. So trying to understand that and plan, so it is needed.