A systems practitioner is someone who is able to put systems concepts into action. This might be in their work, everyday personal life, or both. Systems practitioners often use systems ideas to investigate, evaluate, and make changes in complex situations. Some people think that systems practitioners “look at our systems.” To some degree we do. However, what we mainly do is to take the concepts of how a system works and apply them to situation so that we can work out what is happening in that situation and how we might improve or change it.

But what is a system? Well, a system can be defined as anything consisting of two or more parts which work together as a whole to give a property/ properties that do not exist in one of the parts alone.

For example, a car   can be classed as a system. It consists of a number of parts which, together, give a mode of transport. Transport is the emergent property of the system. It emerges when all of the parts work together. Singularly the engine is not a mode of transport, nor are the wheels or the seats etc. Without the rest of the car they are not a mode of transport.

Systems have various properties. Here are a few of them:

1. they have emergent properties (i.e. being a mode of transport is the emergent property of the car)
2. they self-organise (i.e. they are dynamic, they change)
3. they exhibit “feedback” (i.e. they consist of information flows or loops of causes and effects)

Systems practitioners tend to focus the connectedness between the component parts in a system. These parts can be: people, departments, services, organisations or sometimes whole societies. A system is however big or small you want it to be. Our intention is to understand the system, as a whole, so that we can predict its behaviour. We tend to do this because if we reduce the situation into smaller “bits” and tweak or change only one bit and not the others we will have more chance of failure. But, if we look at it as a whole then we usually have more chance of success. It is not an “ivory tower” academic discipline. It is very pragmatic and practical. Systems practitioners consider the impacts and unintended consequences of actions as well as the actions themselves.