Thanks to the participants of this online discussion group, I had the opportunity to reflect upon the role and the identity of a system thinker.
A systems thinker is not a person who thinks about systems, a systems thinker is a person who thinks in systems, first, and then, maybe, about systems. Or, even better, a systems thinker is a person who thinks in systems about systems.
Systems Thinking is an outcome. You get to it if you consider all components of a system defined by an arbitrary boundary. You are part of the system you are considering. The thinking is demanded of your brain, the systemic outcome depends on if and how you are considering the relationships and the interactions between all components of the observed system. And this is just a starting point. I see no religion, no dogma, no convictions if you go through the approach of Critical Thinking and mitigating biases when you are observing, pondering, and intervening. I see Systems Thinking as a huge amount of work, requiring discipline, focus, concentration, and collaboration much needed to be more effective and efficient in letting the thinking be of elevated quality. That’s also why I think the best Systems Thinking thinking can happen in the context of facilitating collective intelligence composed of diverse, integer, generous people (and machines).
Systems thinking is a way of thinking by considering, within arbitrary boundaries, all relationships between the systems’ components at study.
A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time.
There are many ways to think about reality and how to make decisions—subscribing to the next course, preparing a meal, educating our children, investing in an enterprise, and choosing a charity. We couldn’t take a step, consciously or unconsciously, if we couldn’t’ decide about our next actions.
We can make better decisions only if we know all factors affecting the systems we inhabit. Although we can construct faithful models of such systems, we will never replicate them fully.
Everything we think we know about the world is a model. Despite our effort in making our models congruent with the world, they fall short of fully representing reality.
Systems thinking makes clear even to the most committed technocrat that getting along in this world of complex systems requires more than technocracy.
Systems thinking is the most efficient and effective model we can build of reality. We can think in systems to analyzing the day-to-day problems and address global challenges as the Climate Crisis or poverty.
Systems thinking allows us to see many ways to address the complexity of our society’s challenges and give more and different perspectives on living a better life.
If you want to imagine better futures, in your life, in your community, in your professional field, in our society, you need to become a better Systems Thinker.
[…] Sometimes, it’s quite easy to imagine the consequences of our actions, and yet we decide to ignore what common sense suggests or history has eminently taught us. Sometimes it takes time and extensive researches. So, what’s the best way to broaden our views and increase the complexity of our system thinking without stumbling into paralysis by analysis or an exaggerated, numbing relativism?
Marco Genovesi
I share Marco’s sincere and straightforward curiosity. Being a better Systems Thinker is all nice and good but how do you manage to do it in our chaotic lives?
It was a great opportunity to try to find some direction and, here it follows
Be pragmatically curious—research questions before trying to get answers. Talk about what concerns you rather than pushing it back. Expand your network of thinking people, the more diverse, the better.
And map what surrounds you with the same passion and excitement an explorer could have on an adventure looking for the ultimate truth. Knowing that it will never end. It all sounds romantic and maybe too far-fetched. But simple things could lead the way.
When you obtain effects you didn’t want and you did not expect, following your actions, you are experiencing unintended consequences.
Too much love at the family level
If you squeeze too much your children because you love them you might figuratively and physically suffocate them. Instead of making them closer to you, you become an annoying person and they don’t want to be near you.
Wrong killing incentive at the government level
You are in In India and you want to reduce the danger of having too many Cobra snakes around. You could reward people for killing Cobras with the unintended consequence of making them breed this species to collect the prize. So you are actually making things worst.
Hurting lost children
In World’s poorest countries some of the worst orphanages are pushed toward corrupting families, to sell them their children under the false promise of a better life for them. They will be resold to the best offerer in the international black market. Sad but true. And that’s why children should skip the intermediary step of orphanages.
Why is this interesting?
Negative consequences are unintended when we don’t know the chains of causes and effects leading to them. It’s difficult, very difficult to know and connect all forces in a context and to establish their relationships but it’s the only direction to take to minimize the unintended harmful effects. Sometimes we have to focus on not making mistakes rather than winning so the right move is to not make the bad one.
Systems Thinking is what we need more of
Systems Thinking is an interdisciplinary approach providing one of the most effective and efficient models of reality. By mapping parts and their relationships within a considered system, we have a better understanding of the contexts and we can work to identify to promote the system to a healthier status.
I’ve always been thinking in systems and I didn’t know that. It’s only a few decades ago that I’ve discovered this way to think and to look at the world and I’ve never stopped researching more about it. Systems Thinking is a vast discipline and you will find one definition for every scholar. One life wouldn’t be enough to study all researches, approaches, and frameworks but it is worth it to find our way to be better systems thinkers. As today is one of the best chances to survive as a species.
Systems Changers, applying Systems Thinking to make our world a better place.
Researchers and practitioners of Collective Intelligence, promoting more inclusive participation in Society.
Scientists and scientific researchers, looking to engage the diverse participation of citizens, teachers, entrepreneurs, and consumers in the imagination of more sustainable futures.
Personal Knowledge Management experts, disseminating their passion for ideas and how to have them.
Writers, professionals, and amateurs, lovers of the written expressions and coaches.
Bloggers, Podcasters, influencers, making their thoughts and their words visible and accessible to a wide audience, creating networks of ideas and relationships.
Students, desiring to learn, sharing their knowledge while they’re doing it.
Designers, looking to have an impact going beyond the services and products they ideate.
Teachers, instructors, and trainers striving to leave a mark on their followers by planting seeds for trees they know they will never sit under to enjoy their shade.
Visionaries, investors, entrepreneurs, and Future Thinkers, working hard to make better futures possible.
How is it possible? Writing,you become an interesting person with stimulating questions, engaging stories to tell. Even if you are not publishing your writing, your thoughts increase in clarity, structure, in solidity. Think about the possibility of sharing the best of them: can you imagine the potential?
Extrovert or introvert? Doesn’t matter. Make your thoughts visible, you’ll grow your network.
Extrovert or introvert? Doesn’t matter. make your thoughts visible, you’ll grow your network.
We decided to build opportunities to think and work together. Having people and friends to experiment together is one of the things I love the most. It’s an opportunity to grow, to learn, and to create experiments that could become real work.
What can we learn from each other?
What can we learn together?
What’s the service we can offer by combining our roles?
How can we be accountable for each other professional growth?
We will do a mini-masterclass, on a turn, each of us, to the remaining members.
The Plan
Matteo Carella will talk about complexity thinking and coaching in organizational and business environments.
Marco Valente will treat the discipline of facilitation and will share his experience about how to be a more effective and efficient facilitator.
Massimo Curatella will show how to get the best of the Design Thinking and Human-Centred Design approaches applied to Facilitation.
Working-Out-Loud
I will use this occasion to apply principles, methods, and techniques to this in-house lab experiment and I will write about it. It’s a meaningful opportunity to systematize my experience and to put it to an engaging test.
I have had frequently obstacles and difficulties in researching participants, attendees, and trainees to my courses, seminars, workshops, and like. It has always been a problem with schools, universities, maybe less with private organizations. I will need to look into the recent developments in a more agile and lean way of researching your users when you cannot research your users. It’s going to be fun.
After an exchange on Twitter with Kevin Richard about complexity, how to face it, how to manage it, and how to communicate it, I had a deep, improvised, and intense online conversation with Kevin. We’ve spoken as we’re being friends for 20 years. We went into the weeds of an intense conversation about the topics that we love to discuss on our own blogs and online circles.
It was natural to think about doing something more, together. So Kevin invited me to his podcast, to talk about the same topics. This time, we would record a podcast episode.
Excited about the possibility I did what I usually do when stars collide: I tried to put my thoughts together on the topics which have been on my list for a long time, now. What do I know about Systems Thinking, Critical Thinking, Design, Management, Leadership, Communication? Not a Ph.D., for sure, but I’ve thinking, writing and trying to apply them, in one way or the other in everything I do.
Let’s talk to me
I went to the place I like to go frequently: my mind. And I did what it became natural to me when I need to think: I wrote. Or, better, I talked. I recorded some drafts, impromptu conversations about those topics in a smooth and seamless way. I went into the flow of expressing what interests me, what I feel, and, most of all, what questions I have still unturned. I did transcribe my notes, yes, they went into my journal. But I did not reread them, nor I’ve added them to my Zettelkasten. It was a needed exercise to remove the pressure of thinking too much privately and expressing it too little with words, which somebody can hear.
You cannot contain complexity
That’s when I had the first symptoms of the phenomenon we’re talking about. You cannot contain complexity in straight talk. You cannot express it fully and make it clear, just because you take all the time to put your thoughts in line. And this was the taste I would have been supposed to feel during the podcast. This is talking about complexity, you cannot use it up, you cannot exhaust it. And that’s what gives me thrills of joy and fear. That’s my element. That’s what I need to explore. That’s what I don’t know.
Let’s talk to the Collective Mind, Then
Not happy, and really busy with work and life, I let my diffuse brain cogitate on it, in the background, while designing my life out. But, what if I make good use of the many communities I am following? What if the right scope and functions of people in those communities are to contribute to my loud thinking? Without too much hesitating I’ve prepared a draft message in the spirit of a quick call to friends, just to ask a simple question. And I started to post it in my favorite online circles.
When someone asks “how do you deal with complexity”, I was trained to reply “by reducing it“. That’s probably a very common takeaway when you read about general systems theory.
You cannot transfer complexity 1:1. It’s like how you cannot understand the world as-is. The complexity has to be reduced: in the case of humans, we have limited sensory input (one reduction), a couple of filters (another), and on it goes. (Check out some overviews of epistemology; […]
[…]. So we never deal with the world per se, but with our representation of the world as we understand it. The reduction step is one part of the puzzle.
The other is the re-creation of internal complexity inside the system, aka us humans, through experience. Even our simplistic representation of the world gets richer and more nuanced; never the real deal, but more complex than the representation of a 1-year-old child.
How do you understand complex topics …– by reducing the external complexity of the unknown/the world/the topic, and recreating an internal representation with its own complexity —
… and explain them in an efficient and effective way for those people who can act to solve wicked problems? Now all of that sounds like a bit too much to discuss in one sitting. Richard Feynman did a great job at reducing the complexity of physics and explaining it to others.
[…] “wicked learning environments” that (Epstein 2019) said he got from (Hogarth 2001), but I haven’t checked!, which is: [T]he rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete, there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both. (Epstein 2019, p 21)
sfast was lapidary:
I never explain anything to people who are the ones who take action. And I never accept anything from a person who does not take action but theorizes about a problem.
This makes me think. And I am not sure yet what I think about it.
Ethomasv provides a practical approach:
[…] complexity is somewhat individual assessment.
Whenever I have something that I can’t grasp I do:
1. Find practical examples – seeing how something works in practice helps
2. Find special cases – those cases live on the edge of complexity, usually they are unique because they rely on the theory, but they have specific conditions so that a big portion of complexity can be reduced with abstraction.
3. Find more than one explanation of the same thing – sometimes the obstacle is not complexity itself, but the way explanation is phrased. I always look for different authors and textbooks, they will deal with details in a different way, organize info in a different way, and one of them will resonate more with the way I think and connect information internally.
4. This brings me to the last point, there is no one universal way of explaining something because in order for someone to understand you, you need to use their mental models to describe something to them. Your mental models won’t work. So when I am trying to explain something to others, I try to build up complexity instead of reducing it. I start with very simple building blocks that we are familiar with and then combine them into this complex thing I am trying to explain.
A great synthesis with essential concepts related to understanding, explaining, communication, and mental models. Well done.
Jeannelking connected:
[…] my colleague, Dan Roam, said that has stuck with me: “the person who can best describe the problem is the person best-positioned to solve the problem.”
@ethomasv presents a great example of this in their post above. When we can find a way to understand the problem well enough to describe it effectively to another, that can bring both of us to a place of greater clarity and understanding, where meaningful solutions may begin to be explored.
this speaks to being able to explain them in efficient and effective ways for people to be able to take action. Alan Alda’s Center for Communicating Science at SUNY Stony Brook focuses on helping scientists communicate huge – and wickedly important – ideas in ways that non-scientists can understand.
Dan’s statement focuses on increasing clarity for yourself, which can then be shared with others. Alda’s book focus on how to do that sharing in effective ways through connecting, relating, and storytelling.
Jamesrregan links
Uncertain times The pandemic is an unprecedented opportunity – seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all.
GeoEng51 refer to the Bongoist
I believe Richard Feynman had a quote along the lines of — if he wasn’t able to teach a physics idea in a first-year undergraduate class, he didn’t really understand it himself. So, one tactic might be to strive for that level of understanding and clarity on an idea first for ourselves, before we attempt to enlighten others 🙂
And that’s exactly what I like to do when I want to create clarity on my mind about complex topics.
What’s the podcast theme and who is its audience? What do they listen for, typically – answers or questions to make them think? Are you a fan/listener of the podcast yourself? Are you typical of the type of person interviewed, or are you a break with tradition (ie something different for the audience)?
Always start with your audience. If you don’t know who you’re talking to, how can you curate what you know into meaningful learning and take them on a journey?
The podcast host should be able to tell you about who their listeners are and why they’ve invited you on the show.
Also, how long is the interview? Your topic so far is actually three topics:
How do you understand complex problems?
How do you make other people understand them?
How do you create a positive, efficient and effective movement of change-makers?
Unless you have half a day :-), I suggest focusing on 1 and 2.
And “always starting with your audience” is an universal permanent design principle.
Writing Group in the Inner Circle of Ozan Varol
I wrote:
I am going to be interviewed for a podcast about design, Systems Thinking, Critical Thinking, and complexity.
I have been so wise to choose an impossible topic: “How do you understand complex topics and explain them in an efficient and effective way for those people who can act to solve wicked problems?”
I know it is just impossible. That’s exactly what frustrates me and move me, at the same time.
I was looking for your thoughts, inspirations, quotes, suggestions but also provocations, critiques, pitfalls, traps.
Of course, I am taking into good consideration the continuous efforts I am putting into my Zettelkasten. It grows. In a messy way. With joys and pains. I have one “Ah-a!” for 10 letdowns. But I know it’s my chance to really augment my brain.
I have a few online pen friends, there, following the evolution of my writing endeavors.
Kathleen Marie (Kmarie6) fueled my fire like this:
Is understanding complex topics a process? Are you looking to find a system that can take one through the process that accepts let downs, seeing the letdowns as steps towards the ah-a?
I’ve always liked the idea of asking “Why” 3 to 5 times as a way to get to the root of a problem. What has been your own process in creating and continuing your work on Zettelkasten?
I feel the toughest part of your topic is explaining in such a way that one can then be effective in solving wicked problems. How do we take into account everyone’s different learning styles, biological frames of mind that integrate with one’s personality, etc. in order to explain in such a way that they “get it”.
Critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication, appear.
Rage-panda gave it a go:
I would love to learn more about, and discuss this topic. As my role in product management, we often have to take a large complex problem and break it down into smaller solvable problem to solve. To increase complexity, the solutions themselves are also complex, which requires breaking down the solution into atomic elements that can be implemented sequentially based on dependencies and value.
Once that’s one, I review the atomic elements to determine dependencies and ensure what sequence it needs to be supported, or built.
Finally, now that I have the protagonists (the solutions), the antagonists (the problems), the journey (the sequence of events), I can start to build the story or narrative to explain the problem or the solution or both depending on the audience and objective.
See how the essence of complexity emerges? Reductionism, finding dependencies, telling a story to unroll the complexity.
You may find a good resource in Tesler’s Law / Law of Conservation of Complexity. There’s some good resources in the appendix on more recent copies of Obvious Adams, too. Tesler’s law is my most useful. After a certain point complexity is not going to go away, however, you can make a choice about who deals with it.
An interesting law I was already supposed to know and a weird book. Nice!
Hidden in the word ‘complex’ is the feeling of frustration that you can’t get the answer right away. If you could look at it and get it, then you wouldn’t call it complex, you’d see it and call it simple.
Your attention is focused on something large thinking it’s large and difficult, and because of that, you aren’t focusing on the details which make up the complex. For example, we know we need a car to drive, but we may not know all the parts of why we drive. We just drive.
Simplicity when dealing with complex tasks comes after repeatedly identifying small chunks of the complex, reducing them to simple, and repeating over time. We know how to drive because we learned each part of driving.
So, there are two ways to make complexity simple:
Construction of the Simple Make infrastructure that is easy to interact with for the purpose you desire. I wake up and brush my teeth, because I believe brushing my teeth is necessary, so I will do it whenever I wake up. Every marketer’s dream is to be your toothpaste.
Understanding over Time(UoT) Reducing a complex observation to details you understand. And doing this until you can recreate the complexity in a easier light for others, so they can(at the least) believe that the complex is simple(i.e. construction above).
Simplicity hides the feeling of confidence that we understand, just like complexity hides the feeling of frustration that we don’t understand.
That was straightforward yet articulated and rich with metaphors. Really great contribution. I can see the concepts of living in systems of systems, zooming in and out according to the focus, reductionism to make complexity acceptable. And the beautiful metaphor of driving a car is something I already used in the past and I will definitely use it in the upcoming podcast.
Cestjeffici postulated
Complexity by definition can’t be simple. Framing the issue as making complicated simple would be easier. Most people don’t understand the difference. Looking at the Cynefin Framework definitions of complex and complicated will help.
In a complex system there is cause and effect but it is impossible to find because they are so intertwined.
In a complex system you probe and evaluate.
In a complicated system the cause and effect relationships are clearer. There are logical interconnections that can be discovered.
To make a complicated system simple you find the few places that have the most connections to other elements in the system. Changing one of those points changes the entire system.
I like explaining things to kids. Or to elderly relatives. To someone with little patience, but considerable intelligence, and who I also love.
A big part of explaining is also listening – especially if the topics are complex. Your explanations are best posed as a mutual exploration, where your listener is discovering your topic, and you are discovering their course.
To which, Liberalintent, replied
I’ll second the listening part, I learn by putting aside what I thought was correct and acting as if I thought like someone else. I think the more of yourself you put aside, the easier it is to observe the reality, rather than try to tie it up in a neat simplification. The simplification always cuts out valuable parts of the reality.
And this is what I like to do. Exactly this. I love the concept of mutual exploration and putting your self aside to explore reality. Men and women, this is like being at the Luna Park, again.
Glinglin would strive for clarity, instead:
How can I develop a practice to explain things as clearly as possible?
A complex concept, when explained clearly, may not become simple, but will simply be understood. If a concept is understood, it can be practiced by people with the power to make an impact.
A model that you could use is the structure of Wired’s 5 Levels series. This series will take a complex abstract concept then explain it to:
You could model this by breaking a topic up into engaging explanations for each of the 5 levels, then using the explanation that best matches the ability of your target audience.
And that’s communication! The clarity in making things understandable, not necessarily simpler or reduced.
A rock in the water, without waves
This is what didn’t produce any useful feedback:
"How do you understand complex topics and explain them in an efficient and effective way for those people who can act to solve wicked problems?" I know it is just impossible. That's exactly what frustrates me and move me, at the same time.
Being so inspired and full of prompts and inputs I jotted down an outline, kindly set up by Kevin in Dropbox Paper. Nice tool, btw. Not in a sequence, not exhausting, it is more of an anchor than a sequence of concepts.
Podcast with Massimo
Topics to discuss
How I prepared for this podcast. Internet as a Collective Mind/Personal Learning Network
Doing hard things
As Bruno Munari said “To make things hard is easy, To make things easy is hard.” it is not easy for a facilitator to create a successful facilitation event. And successful facilitation must be easy for participants.
“Evil comes from a failure to think.”― Hannah Arendt
The reason is a double-edged sword: “…our reasoning mechanisms focus on arguments that support our initial views and are content with relatively shallow arguments.” taken from Dan Sperber’s, The Enigma of Reason
How to communicate complexity (if and when you have it understood)
Reducing the level of approximation of information about the user
I started to have a synopsis for a book. Something good to inspire a semester to teach. Great! This is really impossible to do in one hour!
Are we ready for this?
Of course, I am… not. What did you think? How can one be ready for complexity? You cannot.
But the fantastic amount of suggestions, books, links, articles, thinkers, and connections I received from online fellows is really astounding.
I was able to calibrate my thoughts, to refresh several concepts, to improve my bibliography, to refine some quotes, and to put together a better hierarchy of things to discuss thanks to an outline.
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.
As a Strategic Designer, I have the duty of facilitating collective intelligence. Leaders need to make decisions. Organizations want to innovate their production process. Social impact movements organize to address social innovation. Strategic Design for Collective Intelligence helps us to be more than the sum of our parts.
Collective Intelligence is the emergent phenomenon created by people collaborating. They co-design possible solutions to the complex problem they discover through cooperation. Co-creation leads to more inclusive and systemic solutions that are more robust.
What is a Strategic Designer?
A Strategic Designer is a Systems Thinker and a Facilitator. A Designer and a Communicator. A Strategic Designer is a problem-setter and a problem-solver. They define the context of a problem before ideating possible solution scenarios.
Facilitators build upon the knowledge of a group of people. They organize collective thoughts through structured activities. Collective Intelligence Facilitators make collaboration tools out of constraints. Time, resources, requirements, needs and wants become part of the context to work with.
Strategic Designers need to know well the tools of the Design Researchers. They map Stakeholders and their Experience Journey through the realms of the context. A Strategic Designer makes the systems visible to the eye of participants. Strategic Designers embody the principles of inclusive, compassionate and respectful dialogue.
The strategic aspect of design
Strategic Designers explore knowledge to make things clearer towards reaching refined goals. Among the many activities, Strategic Designers work to
Knowing the context
Knowing needs, wants and desires
Extracting knowledge from stakeholders: internal and external.
Knowing how to provide value
Mitigate unintended consequences
VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) is the natural environment where a Strategic Designer thrives. They have to trust the Design Process more than their intuition. They need the persistence to sustain the discomfort of the unknown. Their strength is in trusting the processes of research, envisioning, prototyping, testing, and iteration.
Strategic Design leads to more rational decisions made
A designer should not impose their opinions nor their decisions. A designer should help collaboration among leaders, including all stakeholders. A collaborative decision is more rational and more accepted by the participant in the co-design process.
Strategic Design makes you see for the first time
A Strategic Designer maps processes and flows, components and their interactions. A System Map shows the actual purpose of a system: that is what the system does, not what you intend it to do.
When a leader of a large organization sees for the first time the entire production process, including every branch, from every department, and every possible action for all possible scenarios, they see their organization for the first time.
Trying to imagine what they would think at that time: “Where was I all this time?” “How all of this could happen?”, “What is my real role in my organization?”.
A Strategic Designer facilitates success
A designer facilitates success through context-setting, inclusive and structured acquisition of knowledge, by leading a collaborative process where decision-makers create the best solution for their problems.
How did I become a Strategic Designer?
I grew into the role of a Strategic Designer through many professional and educational opportunities. I moved to the “why” part of the job without anybody to ask for it. Then, people started to ask me less about the “how” part and more of the “why”. This is how I moved from “How to do things” to “Why should we do this?” and “What should we do to get what we want and need?”
It is a demanding role but exciting. It is a leading role but humbling. The more I work as a Strategic Designer, the more I think that every leader should embrace Strategic Design to build better products, better services, better solutions, and a better world.
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