General Systemantics (retitled to Systemantics in its second edition and The Systems Bible in its third) is a systems engineering treatise by John Gall in which he offers practical principles of systems design based on experience and anecdotes. It is offered from the perspective of how not to design systems, based on system engineering failures. The primary precept of the treatise is that large complex systems are extremely difficult to design correctly despite best intentions, so care must be taken to design smaller, less-complex systems and to do so with incremental functionality based on close and continual touch with user needs and measures of effectiveness.
History The book was initially self-published after Gall received rejection letters from 30 publishers. After several reviews in academic journals, it was picked up by Quadrangle–The New York Times Book Company, who published it in 1977. A condensed version was also published in The New York Times prior to the book's publication.
Title origin The term systemantics is a commentary on prior work by Alfred Korzybski called general semantics which conjectured that all systems failures could be attributed to a single root cause – a failure to communicate. Gall observes that, instead, system failure is an intrinsic feature of systems. He thereby derives the term general systemantics in deference to the notion of a sweeping theory of system failure, but attributed to an intrinsic feature based on laws of system behavior. He observes as a side-note that system antics also playfully captures the concept that systems naturally "act up."
Contents
Background
Premise Systems in general work poorly or not at all. This is more a universal observation than a law. The origin of this observation is traced back via:
Murphy's Law that "if anything can go wrong, it will", Alfred Korzybski's general semantics notion of failure's root cause being a communication problem, Humorist Stephen Potter's One-upmanship on ways to "game" the system for personal benefit, Historian C. Northcote Parkinson's principle called Parkinson's Law – "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" Educator Lawrence J. Peter's widely cited Peter Principle – "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence ... in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties ... Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."
Scope By systems, the author refers to those that "...involve human beings, particularly those very large systems such as national governments, nations themselves, religions, the railway system, the post office..." though the intention is that the principles are general to any system. Additionally, the author observes:
Everything is a system. Everything is part of a larger system. The universe is infinitely systematized, both upward (larger systems) and downward (smaller systems). All systems are infinitely complex.
First principles New systems mean new problems. Once a system is set up to solve some problem, the system itself engenders new problems relating to its development, operations and maintenance. The author points out that the additional energy required to support the system can consume the energy it was meant to save. This leads to the next principle:
The total amount of anergy in the universe is fixed. The author defines anergy as the effort required to bring about a change. This is meant as a tongue-in-cheek analog of the law of conservation of energy.
Systems tend to expand to fill the known universe. One of the problems that a system creates is that it becomes an entity unto itself that not only persists but expands and encroaches on areas beyond the original system's purview.
Why systems behave poorly Complicated systems produce unexpected outcomes (Generalized Uncertainty Principle). The author cites a number of spectacular unexpected behaviors including:
The Aswan Dam diverting the Nile River's fertilizing sediment to Lake Nasser (where it is useless) requiring the dam to operate at full electrical generating capacity to run the artificial fertilizer plants needed to replace the diverted sediment. The space Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center designed to protect vehicles from weather is so large that it produces its own weather.
Feedback Not only do systems expand well beyond their original goals, but as they evolve they tend to oppose even their own original goals. This is seen as a systems theory analog of Le Chatelier's principle that suggests chemical and physical processes tend to counteract changed conditions that upset equilibrium until a new equilibrium is established. This same counteraction force can be seen in systems behavior. For example, incentive reward systems set up in business can have the effect of institutionalizing mediocrity. This leads to the following principle:
Systems tend to oppose their own proper function.
What's in a name People performing roles in systems often do not perform the role suggested by the name the system gives that person, nor does the system itself perform the role that its name suggests.
People in systems do not actually do what the system says they are doing (Functionary's Falsity). The system itself does not actually do what it says it is doing (The Operational Fallacy).
Inside systems The real world is what is reported to the system (The Fundamental Law of Administrative Workings [F.L.A.W.]). In other words, the system has a severely censored and distorted view of reality from biased and filtering sensory organs. This distorted view displaces understanding of the actual real-world, which in turn pales and tends to disappear. This displacement creates a type of sensory deprivation and a kind of hallucinogenic effect on those inside the systems, causing them to lose common sense. In addition to negatively affecting those inside the system, the system attracts to it people who are optimized for the pathological environment the system creates. Thus,
Systems attract systems-people.
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