New Light Through Old Windows — But Is It the Right Kind of Light?

Conclusion The process of reviewing the armoury of systems-related models that can be deployed within the Systems Failures Method amounts to a re-appraisal of the boundaries of the subject itself. If the Method and its application is to be pragmatic, and issue related, then the inclusion, or not, of any particular concept or technique can simply be validated against its effectiveness in aiding understanding and, where appropriate, in facilitating action. However, since the Systems Failures Method is most usually applied retrospectively, such a scrutiny would seem to bring little which would distinguish a systems failures analysis from an historical one. The authors’ conclusion is that, since the application of the method does itself occur within a contemporary context in which other analysis and approaches are well known, it beholds the systems analyst to pay particular attention to incorporating those valuable approaches which are also implicitly systemic or which might otherwise be ignored because they are not currently fashionable. So if as Carr (op cit.) claims history is a process of selection in terms of historical significance then a systems failures analysis can involve selection in terms of systemic significance. Nevertheless, the comparison with history is instructive in many ways, not least because it lends support to the case for examining those things which have not worked in the past alongside those which do work now. However, in both subjects the art is in being able to move beyond the explanation which is entirely bound in the particulars of the situation to one which can be expressed in a more general form. As Montesquieu said two hundred years ago: “If a particular cause like the accidental result of a battle has ruined a state there was a general cause which made the down-fall of this state ensue from a single battle”.