A Pattern Language for Complex Systems Analytics

While I was a student, I came across A Pattern Language, a book, ostensibly about architecture, but one that introduced me to a useful way of thinking about systems other than architecture. I found that this approach is especially useful in solving problems in many complex systems.

Complex here is not a synonym for complicated. Complex systems do not just have many parts, but where the operation of, and interaction between, these parts can not be easily modeled. Sometimes because these systems possess one or more interrelated characteristics, such as non-linearity and feedback loops, or because they display higher order complex behaviors like the emergence of spontaneous order, self-organization, homeostatis, adaptation, and self-preservation.

Life itself, of course, is the quintessential source of the largest hierarchy of complex systems that we know. The domains that I work in, healthcare, financial services, and regulation, are just slivers of this hierarchy. I am interested in patterns that help me solve problems in these domains. And this blog is about these patterns.

But what are patterns? As the authors of A Pattern Language write,

The elements of this language are entities called patterns. Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again…and then describes the core of the solution to the problem, in such a way that you can use this solution…

Similarly, I am will use examples of problems in healthcare, financial services, and regulation to illustrate the use of the patterns I discuss. But since my hope is that these patterns will be useful in more domains than the specific example that illustrates it, for each example, I will note the domain and point of view for that particular problem. As the pattern language develops, I will also try to include the relationship to other related patterns.

As any language, in order to continue to be useful and relevant in a changing world, must change and evolve with it. So, too must this pattern language. So, in a way it remains a work in progress. First here with me, through this blog, and then with others as they pick it up, use it, thus modifying it and making it their own.