The System Operator 'tool' is a simple means of helping users to think in terms of TIME and SPACE. The basic principle of operation divides 'the world' into nine segments as shown in Figure 1. The central box of the nine - system, present - is the one our brains naturally migrate to whenever we are given a problem situation. In other words, asked to think about 'designing a better pen', our brains are likely to immediately conjure up the image of a pen ('the system') being used to write ('the present'). What the system operator tool is trying to get us to do is also think about the pen in the bigger ('super-system') context - the person holding the pen, the paper, the desk, etc.; the smaller ('sub-system') context - the components of the pen, the ink molecules, etc.; the pen in the past - manufacture, shipping, un-packing, preparing to write, etc.; and the pen in the future - what happens to the pen immediately after we've finished writing, right through to its disposal after it has run out. Figure 2 illustrates some of the main time and space features that we might like to consider when thinking more completely about the design of a pen. The point of this exercise is to help us overcome the psychological inertia (3) of present and system level only thinking.
