High-Leverage Thinking for Engineers - Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows

Book Overflow

This week Carter and Nathan read Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems. A foundational primer on systems thinking, the book explores how stocks, flows, feedback loops, and leverage points shape everything from ecosystems to organizations. Join them as they discuss how systems thinking applies to software engineering, the hidden structures behind burnout and tech debt, and how to make high-leverage changes in complex systems.

-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --

Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

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Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows

https://amzn.to/4cMB35k (paid link)

Tidy First?: A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design by Kent Beck

https://amzn.to/3RoB9pR (paid link)

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler

https://amzn.to/43Wqk5Q (paid link)

Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach by Mark Richards and Neal Ford

https://amzn.to/3Y7CNjk (paid link)

One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein by Whitney Alyse Webb

https://amzn.to/3RsMt4f (paid link)

Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport

https://amzn.to/3EH8MAe (paid link)

The Software Engineer's Guidebook: Navigating Senior, Tech Lead, and Staff Engineer Positions at Tech Companies and Startups by Gergely Orosz

https://amzn.to/3ExwPSa (paid link)

What Is ChatGPT Doing ... and Why Does It Work? by Stephen Wolfram

https://amzn.to/4iuSUim (paid link)

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00:00 Intro

01:41 About the Book

03:43 Thoughts on the Book

08:07 Covering the Foundations and Defining Terms

16:36 Feedback loops

22:31 Overconfidence and why models lead us astray.

35:56 Paradigms and Framing

49:30 Leverage Points

01:02:04 Final Thoughts

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Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan

Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com

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Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!

The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io