"Systems Are Seductive. They promise to do a hard job faster, better, and more easily than you could do it by yourself. But if you set up a system, you are likely to find your time and effort now being consumed in the care and feeding of the system itself. New problems are created by its very presence. Once set up, it wont go away, it grows and encroaches. It begins to do strange and wonderful things. Breaks down in ways you never thought possible. It kicks back, gets in the way, and opposes its own proper function. Your own perspective becomes distorted by being in the system. You become anxious and push on it to make it work. Eventually you come to believe that the misbegotten product it so grudgingly delivers is what you really wanted all the time. At that point encroachment has become complete. You have become absorbed. You are now a systems person."
"But how does it come about, step by step, that some complex Systems actually function? This question, to which we as students of General Systemantics attach the highest importance, has not yet yielded to intensive modern methods of investigation and analysis. As of this writing, only a limited and partial breakthrough can be reported, as follows: A COMPLEX SYSTEM THAT WORKS IS INVARIABLY FOUND TO HAVE EVOLVED FROM A SIMPLE SYSTEM THAT WORKED"
"The Aswan Dam, built at enormous expense to improve the lot of the Egyptian peasant, has caused the Nile to deposit its fertilizing sediment in Lake Nasser, where it is unavailable. Egyptian fields must now be artificially fertilized. Gigantic fertilizer plants have been built to meet the new need. The plants require enormous amounts of electricity. The dam must operate at capacity merely to supply the increased need for electricity which was created by the building of the dam"
"The field of Architecture has given rise to a second major principle relating to the Life Cycle of Systems. This principle has emerged from the observation that temporary buildings erected to house Navy personnel in World War I continued to see yeoman service in World War II as well as in subsequent ventures, and are now a permanent, if fading, feature of Constitution Avenue in Washington... We conclude: A temporary patch will very likely be permanent."
"The largest building in the world, the space vehicle preparation shed at Cape Kennedy, generates its own weather, including clouds and rain. This and other system principles are explained in a delightful and amusing book by John Gall (1986) entitled Systematics: The underground text of systems lore; how systems really work and how they fail, and is recommended for anyone who designs systems. One can choose to ignore the principles by which systems operate and continue to be puzzled as to why they do not seem to act as we intend, or recognize the principles and thus improve the ability to design systems that work."
"Some years ago, many problems encountered by system developers were brought together in a pithy book by John Gall called Systemantics (Gall 1975). The book applies equally to computer systems and to the encompassing systems of coordinated human enterprise. The books style is droll but its purpose is serious; it should be required reading. Among the many important rules and admonitions the book advances are several worth repeating here for anyone contemplating biodiversity information systems development:"
"A complex system can fail in an infinite number of ways"