This. So much this. Systems thinking is the ability to mentally “zoom out” to have the overview of what the entire system is doing, what its purpose is, how it interacts with and fits into the organization as a whole and other software used by the organization.
It’s the whole questions of what it does, why it does it, who it does it for, when and where it does it in the context of the entire collection, and how it does it in a generic sense.
As I see it, systems thinking wouldn’t be able to look at car design without paying attention to what the car was for, where it was going to be driven, by what general class of driver, and so on. That way, you don’t get a super high performance race car being used as a glorified personal extension in suburban and urban commutes.