John Gall (September 18, 1925 – December 15, 2014) was an American author and retired
pediatrician
Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...
. Gall is known for his 1975 book ''
General systemantics: an essay on how systems work, and especially how they fail...'', a critique of
systems theory
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
. One of the statements from this book has become known as
Gall's law.
Biography
Gall started his studies in
St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. He received further medical training at
George Washington University Medical School
The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (abbreviated as GW Medical School or SMHS) is the professional medical school of the George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. SMHS is one of the most selective medi ...
in Washington, and
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
. Eventually early 1960s he took his pediatric training at the
Mayo Clinic
The Mayo Clinic () is a nonprofit American academic medical center focused on integrated health care, education, and research. It employs over 4,500 physicians and scientists, along with another 58,400 administrative and allied health staff, ...
in Rochester, Minnesota.
In the 1960s Gall started as a practicing pediatrician in
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
and became part of the faculty of the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
. In 2001 he retired after more than forty years of private practice. In the first decades of his practice he had also "conducted weekly seminars in Parenting Strategies for parents, prospective parents, medical students, nursing students, and other health care practitioners."
[John Gall (2007) ''Higher Level Parenting, About the author'' on generalsystemantics.com. Retrieved November 22, 2012.] Until 2001 he held the position of Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan. Beginning in 1958 he was a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
After he retired, Gall and his wife Carol A. Gall moved to
Walker, Minnesota
Walker is a city in Cass County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 941 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Cass County.
Walker is part of the Brainerd Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Minnesota State Highways 34, 200, an ...
, where he continued writing and published seven more titles.
He died in December 2014.
Work
Gall's main research interest was the behavioral and developmental problems of children, on which subject he published several scientific papers and some books. As a sideline he conducted more general research on the question, what makes systems work and fail. He collected and analyzed all kinds of examples of systems-failures, and generalized problems and pitfalls into a series of "Laws of Systems".
In 2002 Gall also published a historical novel on
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut (; also Hatchepsut; Egyptian: '' ḥꜣt- špswt'' "Foremost of Noble Ladies"; or Hatasu c. 1507–1458 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. She was the second historically confirmed female pharaoh, aft ...
, queen of ancient Egypt in the Eighteenth Dynasty. This interest arose from a trip John Gall had made to Egypt in 1969.
Systemantics
In 1975 he published his systems research under the title ''General systemantics'', republished two years later as ''Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail'' by Quadrangle, The New York Times Book Company. This work has been translated into Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Japanese.
In 1986 the second edition was published with the title ''Systemantics: The Underground Text of Systems Lore.'', which was almost twice the size of the first edition.
In 2002 he published a third edition under the title ''The Systems Bible''. This work inspired many authors in the systems movement, such as scientists
Mario Bunge
Mario Augusto Bunge (; ; September 21, 1919 – February 24, 2020) was an Argentine-Canadian philosopher and physicist. His philosophical writings combined scientific realism, systemism, materialism, emergentism, and other principles.
He was ...
(1979),
Paul Watzlawick
Paul Watzlawick (July 25, 1921 – March 31, 2007) was an Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he commented in the fields ...
(1990) and
Russell L. Ackoff
Russell Lincoln Ackoff (February 12, 1919 – October 29, 2009) was an American organizational theorist, Management consulting, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylva ...
(1999), and systems designers
Ken Orr (1981) and
Grady Booch
Grady Booch (born February 27, 1955) is an American software engineer, best known for developing the Unified Modeling Language (UML) with Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh. He is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software archit ...
(1991).
Gall's law
Gall's Law is a
rule of thumb
In English, the phrase ''rule of thumb'' refers to an approximate method for doing something, based on practical experience rather than theory. This usage of the phrase can be traced back to the 17th century and has been associated with various t ...
for
systems design
Systems design interfaces, and data for an electronic control system to satisfy specified requirements. System design could be seen as the application of system theory to product development. There is some overlap with the disciplines of system a ...
from Gall's book ''Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail''. It states:
This law is essentially an argument in favour of underspecification: it can be used to explain the success of systems like the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
and
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social networking service in which everyday authors can p ...
, which grew from simple to complex systems incrementally, and the failure of systems like
CORBA
The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a standard defined by the Object Management Group (OMG) designed to facilitate the communication of systems that are deployed on diverse platforms. CORBA enables collaboration between sys ...
, which began with complex specifications. Gall's Law has strong affinities to the practice of
agile software development
In software development, agile (sometimes written Agile) practices include requirements discovery and solutions improvement through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams with their customer(s)/ end user(s), ad ...
.
Although dubbed ''Gall's Law'' by some, the phrase is
not labeled as such in the original work. The work cites
Murphy's Law and the
Peter Principle
The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until ...
, and is filled with similar sayings.
Although the quote may seem to validate the merits of simple systems, it is preceded by the qualifier "A simple system may or may not work." (p. 70). This philosophy can also be attributed to
extreme programming
Extreme programming (XP) is a software development methodology intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements. As a type of agile software development,"Human Centred Technology Workshop 2006 ", 2006, PD ...
, which encourages doing the simplest thing first and adding features later.
One of the first systems designers to quote Gall's law was Ken Orr in 1981. Notable were the quotations of Gall's Law by
Grady Booch
Grady Booch (born February 27, 1955) is an American software engineer, best known for developing the Unified Modeling Language (UML) with Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh. He is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software archit ...
since 1991, which were mentioned in multiple sources.
[Pierre Pezziardi (2006) ''Une politique pour le système d'information''. p.126 states in French: "John Gall en 2006 repris en 1994 par Grady Booch – un des pères de l'objet – indiquaient : « A complex system that works...]
Selected books
* 1975. ''General systemantics : an essay on how systems work, and especially how they fail, together with the very first annotated compendium of basic systems axioms : a handbook and ready reference for scientists, engineers, laboratory workers, administrators, public officials, systems analysts, etc., etc., etc., and the general public.''. General Systemantics Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
* 1986. ''Systemantics: The Underground Text of Systems Lore. How Systems Really Work and How They Fail'' (2nd edition). .
* 1993. ''Elegant parenting: (how to do it right the first time''. with Beth Gall.
* 2002. ''The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small'' (3rd edition of Systemantics). .
* 2002. ''First Queen: A Historical Novel on the Life of Hatshepsut Queen of Egypt''
* 2004. ''Dancing With Elves: Parenting As a Performing Art''
* 2008. ''Hit by a Low Flying Goose''. with Carol A. Gall
References
External links
General Systemantics™ Press
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gall, John
1925 births
2014 deaths
American information and reference writers
American social sciences writers
American pediatricians
St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) alumni
George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences alumni
University of Michigan faculty
American systems scientists
Yale University alumni
People from Walker, Minnesota