[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Response to paper “Systems Thinking” by D. Cabrera et al.: Systems thinking: An evaluation practitioner's perspective

## Details

**Authors** Datta LE

**Year** 2008

**Publisher** Evaluation and Program Planning 31(3):321-322

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Systems Science

**Secondary disciplines** Public Policy

**Reading level** intermediate

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2008.04.003) 
10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2008.04.003

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

A practitioner-oriented critical appraisal of DSRP from the standpoint of program evaluation — conceptual and practice-based rather than an empirical test. Unusually among these responses, Datta asks explicitly what evidence would be needed to substantiate the practical claims.

### What they found (results)

Datta evaluates three implied claims — simplicity, ease of application, and transformative results — and answers yes, maybe, and maybe. She accepts simplicity: the rules are few and the presentation exceptionally clear. She withholds judgement on the other two, because there were not yet enough diverse, completed, preferably independent evaluations demonstrating them. She sees substantial potential and encourages practitioners to try it.

## Commentary

### In short

Positive, and explicitly evidence-demanding. Datta finds the formulation simple, clear and highly relevant to practice, then separates those conceptual merits from evidence for ease of application and transformative results. That separation is what makes this the most useful contemporary criticism in the set: the simplicity is convincing, and the practical claims require testing.

### In more detail

Datta examines whether the four rules translate into evaluation practice, observing that distinction, system, relationship and perspective correspond to real evaluator activities: distinguishing the program from what it is not, recognising parts and wholes, examining interdependencies, and deliberately considering alternative perspectives. She regards the synthesis as novel and elegant even where individual ideas have precedents.

She then uses evaluation examples to explore where systems thinking could materially improve practice — particularly where conventional evaluation meets complicated boundaries, distributed causation and interdependencies — while arguing that some evaluations can be done adequately without extensive DSRP application. The unanswered questions are when DSRP adds value, how well practitioners implement the rules, and whether it produces the transformative outcomes claimed. She calls for applications across diverse evaluators, settings and scales.

### Response

Datta separates the claims she can judge from those she cannot: simplicity, yes; ease of application and transformative results, not yet, for want of diverse completed independent evaluations. The distinction she draws is the one this compendium exists to address.

**How to cite this** Datta LE (2008). Response to paper “Systems Thinking” by D. Cabrera et al.: Systems thinking: An evaluation practitioner's perspective. Evaluation and Program Planning 31(3):321-322.