Preface
Our past and our plight are in the hands of dreamers and pragmatists.
Dreamers rule the gateways to our future, concerned with a world that could
be. Pragmatists build our next reality, driven by the success or failure of their
previous work. If they solve the wrong problem, or if in the wrong way they
solve the right problem, neither is a credit to mankind. Their solutions may
be clever, apt, and ingenious—exemplars of accomplishment—but they may
have failed a crucial test: failure to appreciate systems integration. The lessons are stern. Systems integration, misunderstood and ineptly executed,
wreaks havoc with other systems. We live with those other systems.
This book concerns the principles and practices of integrating parts to
form a system. This book is not a rehash of integration platitudes or without
mettle. The aim is to discuss the fundamental nature of integration, expose
the subtle premises to achieve integration, posit a substantial theory framework that is both simple and clear, and elaborate on the discussion of integrating in ways in which you may not be accustomed. The practices of
integration are substantially more than a narrative of fiddle-faddle banter
casually dispensed during planning sessions or abused when directing
other people’s work. Managers share the greater responsibility to not just say,
“just go integrate it.” The practicalities of integrating parts when we build or
analyze systems mandate an analysis and evaluation of existing integrative
frameworks of causality and knowledge. Integrating is not just a word that
describes a best practice, an art, or a single discipline. The act of integrating
is an approach, operative in all disciplines, in all we see, in all we do.
Integration is not found everywhere, but when it exists, we find systems.
Philosophy and reason, curiosity and questioning, and mystery and contemplation are not enough to disentangle the concepts of integration. Nor will
they ever be enough. An idea begins with a single notion—a notion that
something is either right or wrong. That notion might be an extension to an
established natural or social “law,” a nuance imposed on theory or knowledge structures of our thinking, or just a plain intuition, however inspired.
No discernable method need be followed. Whether right or wrong, the notion
persists, perhaps long after a spell of acquiescence or self-doubt. Yet the notion
yearns for completeness. The unrequited notion has no self-determination, no
humbleness; it just eats at you. Right requires justification, wrong requires
conviction. If you stay on the path of right, the guideposts are many, and you
never stray. But there is no one path for wrong, no lit way, no signposts, no
guide. To be wrong, you must glean from whatever right you allow as your
encumbrances. The greater the right, the greater the burden you carry, and
the less you can stray. The burden you carry is all that has come before you.
xvii
Our past and our plight are in the hands of dreamers and pragmatists.
Dreamers rule the gateways to our future, concerned with a world that could
be. Pragmatists build our next reality, driven by the success or failure of their
previous work. If they solve the wrong problem, or if in the wrong way they
solve the right problem, neither is a credit to mankind. Their solutions may
be clever, apt, and ingenious—exemplars of accomplishment—but they may
have failed a crucial test: failure to appreciate systems integration. The lessons are stern. Systems integration, misunderstood and ineptly executed,
wreaks havoc with other systems. We live with those other systems.
This book concerns the principles and practices of integrating parts to
form a system. This book is not a rehash of integration platitudes or without
mettle. The aim is to discuss the fundamental nature of integration, expose
the subtle premises to achieve integration, posit a substantial theory framework that is both simple and clear, and elaborate on the discussion of integrating in ways in which you may not be accustomed. The practices of
integration are substantially more than a narrative of fiddle-faddle banter
casually dispensed during planning sessions or abused when directing
other people’s work. Managers share the greater responsibility to not just say,
“just go integrate it.” The practicalities of integrating parts when we build or
analyze systems mandate an analysis and evaluation of existing integrative
frameworks of causality and knowledge. Integrating is not just a word that
describes a best practice, an art, or a single discipline. The act of integrating
is an approach, operative in all disciplines, in all we see, in all we do.
Integration is not found everywhere, but when it exists, we find systems.
Philosophy and reason, curiosity and questioning, and mystery and contemplation are not enough to disentangle the concepts of integration. Nor will
they ever be enough. An idea begins with a single notion—a notion that
something is either right or wrong. That notion might be an extension to an
established natural or social “law,” a nuance imposed on theory or knowledge structures of our thinking, or just a plain intuition, however inspired.
No discernable method need be followed. Whether right or wrong, the notion
persists, perhaps long after a spell of acquiescence or self-doubt. Yet the notion
yearns for completeness. The unrequited notion has no self-determination, no
humbleness; it just eats at you. Right requires justification, wrong requires
conviction. If you stay on the path of right, the guideposts are many, and you
never stray. But there is no one path for wrong, no lit way, no signposts, no
guide. To be wrong, you must glean from whatever right you allow as your
encumbrances. The greater the right, the greater the burden you carry, and
the less you can stray. The burden you carry is all that has come before you.
xvii