A list of favourite aphorisms, maxim's & footnotes collected through anecdote, podacsts or readings. 

Russel Ackoff

• What a person learns in school is almost irrelevant; the important thing is that he learns how to learn and is motivated to do so.
• You never learn by doing something right because you already know how to do it. The only opportunity for learning is to identify mistakes and correct them.
• The worst kind of mistake is something you didn't do that you should have done; not doing something that turns out to be wrong.
• Not doing something you should have done is an error of omision which is much worse then doing something you should not have done (error of commission).
• An Architect always begins with the conception of the building as a whole and works down to the details; he doesn't start with the details and work out to the whole. This explains why complexity is not a problem for the Architect unlike the analysts who try to take the systems apart and deal with each of the parts and interactions.
• The performance of the whole depends on how the parts work together not how they work taken separately. (Referring to the management of interaction - i.e. Not what they do but how they do things together).
• Complexity is in the mind of the beholder.
• Research and experimentation is the paradigm for analytic thinking (taking things apart). Design is the paradigm for Synthetic thinking (putting things together)
• One has to understand the whole before one can understand the function and the needs of the parts. You cannot treat the parts as independent entities. The importance of the parts is the way they interact and not how they act taken separately.
• The less important an issue is, the more time managers spend discussing it..

 

Benjamin Frankin

• Everybody's problem is more complex than anybody else's
• Familiarity breeds complexity