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Essay about Project Mgmt: Projects and Systems Theory

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:PROJECT MANAGEMENT 641

ASSIGNMENT 1: Projects and Systems Theory

“The most pervasive intellectual tradition to project management is without doubt the systems approach”

Unit Coordinator: David Baccarini
Teaching Staff: Geoff Salm

By Ben Westerberg
16832778

PART I –THEORY
Describe the key fundamentals of systems theory
Just about anything in life can viewed as having systems (Baccarini 2013). They can be found anywhere from within nature to anywhere in society and business. To better understand the principle of systems and the theories associated with them it is important to define what a ‘system’ is. There have been many experts who have helped create and contribute to systems theory and they all have similar thoughts …show more content…

As mentioned before a common thought of systems thinking is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and this means that these relationships between systems and subsystems provide synergies that would not otherwise be present if those parts of the system performed individually.
All systems are goal-seeking. In all cases each component in a system has a task or purpose, and each task contributes completing the shared common goal of the system. It is said that if systems lack well-defined goals they tend to go in all directions, when effective systems all tend to move in the direction of the goal achievement (Shoech 2004). The Business Dictionary definition of system mentioned earlier stated that they ‘maintain their activity… in order to achieve the goal of the system.’ It is important to be able to recognise the objectives of a system to ensure that it is working effectively and evaluate whether changes need to be made to increase its capacity to achieve its goals (Systems Theory Overview 2013).
Systems will always have boundaries and these boundaries contain the system which is made up of elements or subsystems. Systems can be broken down and each individual part, or element, can be analysed and will have a purpose. Sometimes these elements can be broken down again into individual parts and analysed further and this is called a subsystem. Systems Theory Overview (2013) states that it is important to be able to recognise

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