A business analyst might be asked to look into a sluggish purchase requisition process with the following symptoms: - Staff experience long delays when trying to get approval for purchases. - There may be multiple approval levels, unclear ownership, or slow response times. On the surface, this may like a simple efficiency problem and might traditionally be addressed with solutions such as “streamline the approvals” or “automate the form.” But systems thinking digs deeper, asking: > "Why is the process behaving this way? What loops and incentives are in place? What is being reinforced or stabilised?" This approach might reveal: 1 **A Balancing Loop Protecting Against Overspending** This is a **stabilising loop** (also called a balancing loop). Its job is to prevent excessive or unnecessary spending: - When spending increases, managers tighten scrutiny. - More scrutiny causes slower approvals. - Slower approvals discourage casual or impulsive requests. - Fewer requests help reduce spending. - Reduced spending reduces scrutiny, and the loop stabilises again. This loop may not be consciously implemented but it has a desired purpose - it slows spending to protect the budget. So the sluggishness is not random - it’s stabilising the amount of spending. 2 **A Reinforcing Loop This is a **positive feedback loop**, but in a _destructive_ direction: 1. Delays frustrate users who need to buy things. 2. So they develop workarounds: buying without approval, using personal cards, inflating requests to get through faster, etc. 3. These workarounds erode trust - Finance or management see staff circumventing rules. 4. In response, they add more controls - more documentation, extra sign-offs, system restrictions. 5. These new controls make the process even slower. 6. The cycle reinforces itself. The “sluggishness” of the process isn’t just bad design. It’s the result of: - A **balancing loop** that’s trying to protect resources (valid purpose) - A **reinforcing loop** that’s making things worse over time (destructive spiral) If you only fix the surface (e.g. by speeding up the form), you may undermine the balancing loop (risking overspending) and / or ignore the root cause of the reinforcing loop (mistrust, misaligned incentives). Instead, redesign the process to preserve the stabilising function (e.g. through real-time budget visibility) andreak the reinforcing loop (e.g. through better communication, delegation, or trust-building)