Before considering rebuilding a solution because old, it’s wise to evaluate the differences between the existing system and the new version to be designed. Even if there are many components with several interdependencies it might be convenient to evaluate a piece-by-piece update rather than scratching everything and starting back from zero.
How shall we decide if we should redo it from scratch or adapt the existing one?
Plan to invest a limited amount of time to map the most connected and relevant part of the system to the one to be and see if it is relatively straightforward to translate between the old and the new or if there are too many differences or new pieces or a lot of old pieces to be completely removed.
If you discover that there is a high ratio of unchanged parts or slightly adapted components versus the novelties you might consider updating and upgrading the old rather than starting from scratch.
In very complicated systems, if you discover that the update is more convenient than the rebuild you might save a lot of time and resources.
When looking to create a new solution starting from premade pieces you need to have a precise and exhaustive inventory of all the pieces and how they can connect with each other.
Design is about finding new and useful connections. New, compared to the solutions found until now, otherwise you would have already solved the problem. Useful because they are satisfying the needs, wants and desires of the final users.
It’s not wise to try to arrange the pieces without having a clear and shared understanding of their functions and their potential for connection, it could be inefficient or, worst, harmful.
The phases of inventory and mapping are crucial to make a system visible. Any serious management and leadership effort as well as a design intervention should always rely on a careful and accurate system mapping.
We can find the weak links and the strength points of a product, an organization, a service or a group only if we know how it is composed. We need to know not only all of its components but especially their relationships. What buttons shall we push and in which sequence to create the effects we desire? Make the system visible to redesign, develop and lead it.
Kristel van Ael talked about Systemic Design, the differences and similarities to Design Thinking and she introduced the Systemic Design Toolkit, a tool to help using the methodology in business contexts.
Namahn is Humanc-centred design agency in Brussels, Belgium.
Systemic Design Definition
Systemic Design integrates systems thinking and human-centered design, with the intention of helping designers cope with complex design projects (also called Wicked Problems).
Traditional design methods are inadequate to face the recent global challenges stemming from increased complexity as globalization, migration, and sustainability.
Systemic Designers need improved tools and methods to design responsibly while avoiding uninterested consequences/side-effects.
Wicked Problems involve multiple aspects, multiple parties, multiple interests and perspectives. They show no clear link between cause and effects.
See how we failed with poverty reduction, waste management, migration, pollution and climate crisis.
Limits to Growth. Donella Meadows.
The problem with Reductionist Thinking
From a very early age, we are taught to break apart problems, to fragment the world. This apparently makes complex tasks and subjects more manageable, but we pay a hidden, enormous price.”
—Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline.
Unintended consequences
The Cobra Effect. An example of unintended consequences.
Unintended consequences are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen.
Unexpected benefit: A positive unexpected benefit (also referred to as luck, serendipity or a windfall).
Unexpected drawback: An unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the policy (e.g., while irrigation schemes provide people with water for agriculture, they can increase waterborne diseases that have devastating health effects, such as schistosomiasis).
Perverse result: A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended (when an intended solution makes a problem worse).
How is COVID 19 an intended consequence?
What is Systemic Design?
What is Systemic Design?
Systemic Design lays at the intersection of Design Thinking and Systems Thinking and aims at helping designers to face complex problems.
By zooming out to understand how the parts of the system influence each other.
By zooming in, co-designing, with the stakeholders, the components that can leverage Systems Change.
Design Thinking has a focus on the parts, products and services, to create optimal User Experiences.
provides a structured problem-solving process
Puts people on the center
Hands-on, co-creative, cross-disciplinary
allows to learn and improve through prototyping, and testing
Systems Thinking has a focus on the whole, on the interaction of stakeholders, products and services aiming at influencing the emergent behavior of the system.
to identify non-linear relationships (see also Circular Design and Circular Economy)
It’s open ended, shaping the conditions for change. With the Systems Thinking approach you need to focus on creating an environment conducing to the emergence of the changes that you aim for.
The Systemic Design Toolkit
Built by Namah in collaboration with shiftN, MaRS and SDA, the Systemic Design Toolkit is a methodology and a library of tools based on academic research and human-centre design expertise.
It’s based on the principle that Systems Change should be co-designed and co-created within the system and with the actor of the system, preferably, with the stakeholders in the same room. And provides tools to foster dialogue between the parts without requiring participants to master its inner working and principles.
The structure of the Systemic Design Toolkit. Diagram.
The Systemic Design Toolkit is composed by seven steps and includes more than 30 tools.
Framing the system (Systems Thinking)
Listening to the system (Design Thinking)
Understanding the system (Systems Thinking)
Defining the desired future (Design Thinking)
Exploring the possibility space (Systems Thinking)
Designing the intervention model (Design Thinking)
Fostering the transition
Framing the system
You cannot change what you don’t know: generate shared understanding of the current context and identify the stakeholder to involve.
Map the rich context of current practices, trends and innovative initiatives.
Listening to the system
Analyze the interactions between the actors by identifying hidden relationships.
It’s a way to communicate the essence of your field research.
Actants describe archetypical relationships.
Understanding the system
Develop a shared understanding about forces and interdependencies in the system to discover the leverage points.
Create a system map, “make the system visible” by visualizing its structure and the relations between its components.
Defining the desired future
Align the stakeholders on the Value Proposition. What do we want to change and how? What is the future we are imagining?
Co-Design an ideal desired future (better thinking about “futures”) by imagining how we want to improve the future context of individuals, organizations and society.
To give sense to the whole process designers need to explore different types of possible intervention by making sure they are covering the big picture emerged by the initial research activities.
A brainstorming activity to craft an intervention strategy in which you explore the leverage points in a system.
Designing the intervention model
Investigate how interventions connect and reinforce each other to envision an effective strategy for change.
The intervention model represents the DNA of change. Interventions are Design Concepts that will enable Systems Change.
Fostering the transition
Plan the transition towards the desired goal by moving from the Minimum Viable Product (maybe the Minimum Viable Solution in this case) to the full implementation of the intervention model.
The roadmap for transition is a tool to plan the implementation of the interventions, in a way that transformation happens step by step.
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