A First Inventory of Investigational Concerns for Prognostic Systems Thinking based on an Extended Conceptual Framework

Abstract

As the nature of systems changes, systems thinking must also change. A currently happening strong change is proliferation of highly intellectualized and socially deeply embedded engineered systems, which raise many novel and crucial technological, managerial, social, organizational, business, environmental, human, and so forth, issues. Considering the influences of this change, it is argued that there is a need for prognostic systems thinking (PST) that considers not only the observable manifestation of systems, but also the trends of their overall development. The reported research is based on a comprehensive literature study and concept relationship analysis. Its goal was deriving a comprehensive set of investigational concerns based on an extended conceptual framework. Rendered as a semantic network, this conceptual framework rests on a set of foundational concepts (semantically interconnected pillars). The paper (i) explains the reasons of the abovementioned need, (ii) identifies the pillars of contemporary analytic systems thinking as well as a set of up-and-coming new pillars, (iii) presents a first iteration of the novel conceptual framework, (iv) discusses the proposed investigation concerns for prognostic systemic analysis, and (iv) casts light on their implications with regard to PST. Furthermore, some currently open issues (such as determination of the boundaries of systems, completeness/sufficiency of a given set of concerns, and ranking/preference of concerns) and research opportunities (such as methodological support of deriving concerns, objective concerns assessment in various application contexts, and computer support of PST) are suggested.