What is this place?
Systophia is my school of thought on systems thinking and systems analysis: how systems work, how they break, and how they can be designed. The original essays are long-form and written in Persian.
This is the English edition. It is a selection, not a mirror: essays are translated one by one, and each translated page links back to its Persian original (top of the sidebar, “فارسی”).
Foundations of systems analysis
A structured course, from the definition of a system to gathering and validating requirements.
- What is systems analysis, and why does it matter?
- What is a system? Definition, components and purpose
- What is analysis, and why must an analyst think holistically?
- Holism and reductionism: two views in analysis
- A critique of modernity and a civilisational view of systems
- General system theory: from Bertalanffy to today
- What does a systems analyst do?
- The systems development life cycle (SDLC)
Requirements: definition and analysis
- An introduction to systems analysis and why requirements matter
- Defining versus analysing a system
- A practical exercise in defining a system
- Assumption versus hypothesis
- Factors that matter in requirements analysis
- Common mistakes of new analysts
- Modelling requirements with use cases
- The structure of a requirements document (SRS)
Gathering, classifying, validating
- An introduction to gathering and analysing requirements
- Techniques for gathering requirements
- Analysing and classifying requirements
- Validating requirements
- Expert systems and their role in analysis
Essays
- Automating a bad smell: why making a broken process “smart” only repeats its fault faster.
- From data to insight: the pyramid that guides understanding (DIKW)
- Theory first or data first: two views of data analysis
Lipstick on a pig
Cosmetic repair does not change structure. Four takes on that idea, with notes on three books: Lipstick on a Pig.