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One why to identify the effects of a system is to recognise how situations are described.  A rich array of metaphors exist in common English.

• "it only made things worse"
• "no matter how hard I try"
• "no good deed goes unpunished"
• "it came back to bite me"
• "the fix only made things worse"
• "a stitch in time saves nine"
• "it's quicker in the long-run"
• "plan early, plan twice"

We've all heard these expressions before, however their real value is not in providing advice for an immediate choice of action, but rather they offer clues to the underlying problem that exists within the system.  For example the above list might be better interpreted as....

• "we've just uncovered an unintended consequence in our system"
• "even when working at full performance, this problem cannot be addressed by one person working hard."
• "every time we do the job properly, it has never cause a problem, maybe this is the standard we need to achieve every time?"
• "we cannot cut-corners in this part of the process, as this has a great impact on the system."
• "we've just uncovered an unintended consequence in our system"
• "early intervention at this stage of the process improves our system"
• "the entire system requires that we invest more time to this stage of the process, otherwise there's a knock-on effect afterwards"
• "we are not getting accurate information early enough from the rest of the system, to justify planning this early"