Synthesis

Synthesis, or putting things together, is the key to Systems Thinking just as analysis, or taking them apart, was the key to Machine-Age thinking.

Synthesis, of course, is as old as analysis—Aristotle dealt with both but it is taking on a new meaning and significance in a new context just as analysis did with the emergence of the Machine Age.

Synthesis and analysis are complementary processes. Like the head and tail of a coin, they can be considered separately, but they cannot be separated. Therefore, the differences between Systems-Age and Machine-Age thinking derives not from the fact that one synthesizes and the other analyses, but from the fact that systems thinking combines the two in a new way.

Systems thinking reverses the three-stage order of Machine-Age thinking: (1) decomposition of that which is to be explained, (2) explanation of the behavior or properties of the parts taken separately, and (3) aggregating these explanations into an explanation of the whole. This third step, of course, is synthesis.

Note that in this sequence, synthesis precedes analysis.

In analytical thinking the thing to be explained is treated as a whole to be taken apart. In synthetic thinking the thing to be explained is treated as a part of a containing whole.

An example might help clarify the difference. A Machine-Age thinker, confronted with the need to explain a university, would begin by disassembling it until he reached its elements; for example, from university to college, from college to department, and from department to faculty, students, and subject matter. Then he would define faculty, student, and subject matter. Finally, he would aggregate these into a definition of a department, thence to college, and conclude with a definition of a university.

A systems thinker confronted with the same task would begin by identifying a system containing the university; for example, the educational system. Then such a thinker would define the objectives and functions of the educational system and do so with respect to the still larger social system that contains it. Finally, he or she would explain or define the university in terms of its roles and functions in the educational system.

These two approaches should not (but often do) yield contradictory or conflicting results: they are complementary. Development of this complementarity is a major task of systems thinking. Analysis focuses on structure; it reveals how things work. Synthesis focuses on function; it reveals why things operate as they do. Therefore, analysis yields knowledge; synthesis yields understanding. The former enables us to describe; the later, to explain.

Analysis looks into things; synthesis looks out of things. Machine-Age thinking was concerned only with the interactions of the parts of the thing to be explained; systems thinking is similarly concerned, but it is additionally occupied with the interactions of that thing with other things in its environment and with its environment itself. It is also concerned with the functional interaction of the parts of a system. This orientation derives from the preoccupation of systems thinking with the design and redesign of systems. In systems design, parts identified by analysis of the function(s) to be performed by the whole are not put together like unchangeable pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; they are designed to fit each other so as to work together harmoniously as well as efficiently and effectively.

Harmony has to do not only with the effect of the interactions of the parts on the whole, but also with the effects of the functioning of the whole and the interactions of the parts on the parts themselves. It is also concerned with the effects of the functioning of the parts and the whole on the containing system and other systems in its environment. This concern with harmnony has important implications in the management of systems […].

ACKOFF, Russell Lincoln, 1981. Creating the corporate future: plan or be planned for. New York: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-09009-0, p. 16–17.