[Ed: this document was written by Cleveland Hopkins as an addenda to an unidentified white paper produced in the early 1970s at the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP) — a White House office dedicated to policy-making in a rapidly shifting telecom environment. It is meant as an introduction to the concept of the systems process for those unfamiliar with the approach. Cleveland Hopkins was involved as a Systems Analyst looking at USPS electronic mail-handling; international and domestic telecom policy; digital medical record-keeping in the context of universal health care, among many other projects. His early career included twenty years in weapons system development (radar and ICBM) with DOD and MITs Lincoln Laboratory and Radiation Lab (Rad Lab) among other organizations. See his obit for further information.]

APPENDIX 8: The Systems Process

It is the objective of this short paper to invite attention to the Systems Process, its concepts, its essential nature, limitations and capabilities, and its output.

Introduction

“The systems approach basically applies scientific methods to the solution of practical problems,” [1], Concepts of the systems process vary from regarding it as the most powerful intellectual tool ever devised to “…the vacuous systems approach…” Historically, some of these ideas were applied to the activity used during World War II by small groups of people in trying to solve problems that were beyond the capacity of one person in the available time; these initial applications were to radar matters involved in the defense of Britain. Larger business firms have used such a process for many years to pool the efforts of management to subsequently maintain or improve their profit margins. The process began to get widespread public recognition shortly after Robert S. McNamara became Secretary of Defense; he brought in a group of technical people, later called the “Whiz Kids“ by the military, who, after some effort were able to break up the massive military problems into pieces that could be profitably worked on by individuals of different professional backgrounds. Their results were then combined and modified by operational people so that the solutions were relevant to the real world. Some duplication was taken out of the military services, and great efforts were made to obtain maximum results for the money spent, giving rise to cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness schemes.

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