ZDNet Definition for: Systemantics

An insightful book on the systems process by John Gall (1977). The following "Concise Summary of the Field of General Systemantics" is copied with permission from Random House.

Systems Are Seductive...
They promise to do a hard job faster, better, and more easily than you could do it by yourself. But if you set up a system, you are likely to find your time and effort now being consumed in the care and feeding of the system itself. New problems are created by its very presence. Once set up, it won't go away, it grows and encroaches. It begins to do strange and wonderful things. Breaks down in ways you never thought possible. It kicks back, gets in the way, and opposes its own proper function. Your own perspective becomes distorted by being in the system. You become anxious and push on it to make it work. Eventually you come to believe that the misbegotten product it so grudgingly delivers is what you really wanted all the time. At that point encroachment has become complete... you have become absorbed... you are now a systems person!

Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2009 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved.