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

# Build your Skills: Systems Thinking

## Details

**Authors** Caredda, Sergio

**Year** 2019

**Publisher** The Intentional Organisation (Medium)

**Kind of work** press

**Discipline** Business & Management

**Secondary disciplines** Systems Science

**Kind of engagement** public

**Applied** false

[Read it](https://medium.com/the-intentional-organisation/build-your-skills-systems-thinking-9047d5670438)

## In authors' words

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

To argue that systems thinking is a skill individuals and organizations can deliberately develop rather than a toolkit of methods, and to give managers a practical way to build it in themselves and in others.

### How they did it (methods)

An essay in a 'Build your Skills' series on future-of-work capabilities. Caredda contrasts the system-dynamics lineage running from Jay Forrester, which he characterizes as focused on methods and modelling, with a patterns account of the underlying skill. He takes DSRP as that patterns layer, converts each pattern into a pair of questions to run on any issue, and closes on the organizational problem of developing the skill in a linear-thinking workplace, drawing on a tactics table from Ollhoff and Walcheski.

### What they found (results)

Caredda concludes that systems thinking is a developable skill, that it is especially needed during technological disruption, and that it demands sustained effort. He warns that a systems thinker can be isolated in an organization that thinks linearly, and that holding too many options in view can produce decision paralysis. He recommends beginning by moving from symptoms to root problems, and points readers to Daniel Kim's introduction as an entry point.

## Commentary

### In short

An organization-design essay that adopts DSRP as the pattern layer of systems thinking treated as a developable skill, restating each pattern with its co-implied pair and turning the four into a question set for working through any issue.

### In more detail

Caredda writes that he likes the approach Derek Cabrera identified, 'that has defined the basic patterns of System Thinking through an Acronym: DSRP,' and credits Systems Thinking Made Simple for detailing them. He gives each pattern with the pair it co-implies: 'Making Distinctions – which consist of an identity and an other'; 'Organizing Systems – which consist of part and whole'; 'Recognizing Relationships – which consist of action and reaction'; 'Taking Perspectives – which consist of point and view.' He then synthesizes them, writing that thinking is primarily about making sense of the parts through distinctions, of the context through how parts relate to the whole, and of their relationships in all directions. On perspectives he adds that having a point of view is where thinking becomes systematic, synthesizing observation into accurate judgement. He reproduces the part-whole balance argument, that breaking things down into parts is itself an act of systems thinking 'as much as seeing things in the context of their whole,' and that 'A healthy part-whole balance is a necessary aspect of systems thinking.' The four patterns are then set out as questions to apply to any issue: what is and is not X; whether X has parts and whether X can be thought of as a part; whether X is related to Y and whether X can be thought of as a relationship; and what the issue looks like from a named perspective and from a different one. He specifies that these are applied in an iterative loop rather than a linear sequence. The piece embeds a video of Cabrera defining systems thinking.

### Response

The restatement is accurate on the point secondary accounts most often garble: each pattern is given with the pair that co-implies it, and the part-whole balance argument is reported as the theory makes it, with reductionism as an act of systems thinking rather than its opposite. The question set matches the form used in the Cabreras' own teaching materials, and the instruction to run it iteratively rather than as four steps forecloses the most common misreading of the theory as a procedure. One framing is narrower than the theory: presenting DSRP as the patterns layer of an acquirable skill treats the four as a competence a person builds, where the theory holds them to be the structure thinking already has, with training aimed at metacognitive awareness of patterns already in use.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P

**Added** 2026-10-19

**How to cite this** Caredda, Sergio (2019). Build your Skills: Systems Thinking. The Intentional Organisation (Medium).