External and internal project roles ​

"When I say system, I mean the presence of creators::system and their project roles, creating this system, and creators::system, creating this system as part of some suprasystems. When I say project role, I mean a system that is created or operated by this role" - these are the basics of system thinking (a system in its environment) at its intersection with methodology (a system-creator, "working in some method"/"somehow"/"in some style"). It is possible to specify further which systems (target, creators somewhere in the creation chain, suprasystems, subsystems), which projects for creating these systems need to be considered, but the essence of reasoning does not change.

The project role (performed by the agent-constructive for this role) logically appears in this reasoning before the system appears: if there is no agent playing a role to fulfill its intention, there is simply no one to identify the system with attention from the objects of the surrounding world. And vice versa, if the system is identified as an object from the diversity of objects in the surrounding world, then what and who defined its boundaries in the world in this way, and not in some other way? Why was it of interest to the system at all, what characteristics of the system are important to such an agent, and for the use of which method in which role of this agent?

Of course, project roles are not played by any people/agents/actors for whom the system is "interesting", no more than "curious" (like observers, but without the desire to stir with a finger afterwards). No, project roles are those that will in principle act in the physical world if they need this system (or vice versa, they interfere with their characteristics). These roles are played by real agents (people, organizations, AI agents) who ultimately change the physical world, not just the "world of imagination"/"mental world"/"world of descriptions". Like an "observer" in everyday physics does not change the world, he is not an actor/practitioner, so are other "observers", they are just onlookers, they do not need to be objects of attention in the project. Project roles are "active agents", they come alive when played as "executors"! And they influence target systems and systems in creation, important characteristics of which interest them. They must be identified in the project and kept in attention in the course of reasoning about the system and the project of its creation.

Dogs bark, but the caravan moves on: dogs are not project roles, they do not influence the caravan. But if the merchant does not pay for the caravan's passage, the caravan will not move. The merchant is a project role, he occupies an activity/active position in relation to the caravan. By-passing agents are not agents with project roles. Project roles are the agents who cannot just pass by, they are the agents whose roles the project will definitely touch or who will definitely interact with the project.

Usually, many projects are associated with the system, it is not necessarily exactly one project in terms of classical project management, i.e. the work of one team. In one project of one team, a system can be conceived, in another - designed, in a third - manufactured, in a fourth - operated, then resold, in a fifth - continued to operate, then in a sixth - modernized, in a seventh - continued operation, then in an eighth - liquidated, but eventually it is discovered that the project needs to be continued for the development of the system - and a ninth project emerges. A project role can be in any of these projects; for example, when conceiving and creating the system, we consider the project roles of the people who will later operate the system: roles and subroles of operators, roles and types of users of the system. If we are creating a video game, the player role is considered from the start, even though there may be many years before the game is released - and it is not clear who exactly (which agent) will play this role, there may be millions of players later.

In system thinking, we regularly think about the future "as if it already exists", this is normal for 4D extensionalism. To say "I don't know what the system will be like, because the system does not exist yet" is ignoring the engineering experience of humanity. All projects to create systems begin with the fact that the system does not yet exist, but people are already thinking about it!