The art and science of enquiry, comprehension and diagnosis in complex systems.
Eight Enquiry Areas
My curiousity on this topic led me to create these eight areas of enquiry:
Mental models - Habits of thought, mindsets, deeply held beliefs and assumptions that influence how we think, what we do, and how we talk. Including how we process external forces.
Connections - Interrelationships, interconnections, interdependencies and the social dynamics thereof.
Structures - The arrangement of, and relations between, the parts or elements.
Flows - The volume, quality, and equity of the capital flows around the system (natural, financial, manufactured, human, social, cultural, political, and digital capital)
Rules - The incentives and disincentives placed within the system to shape behaviour and, therefore, outcomes.
Constructors - The formal and informal procedures, practises, guidelines, and habits that comprise work and produce and maintain the patterns.
Innovation - The emergence of all new versions of any of the above in the existing system, pointing to the new system and a different future.
Unknown unknowns - The need for us to carry open eyes, ears and hearts into and through this work due to our imitations and biases that affect our ability to perceive, understand, and intervene in a complex adaptive system
Explanation
I love David Snowden’s metaphor of system work being like rewilding a forest. As he implies, if I were an ecologist seeking to nurture the system's transition rather than an engineer seeking to conquer it, I’d take the time to build wisdom and empathy. I’d have the desire to unpack the what, where, who, how, when, and why.
All my ‘system work’ starts with an aspiration from a concerned group for a different future than the path we are on, i.e., the transition of the system. This aspiration provides some guide rails and prompts for your enquiry work.
The way you ask the question does lead you into a certain train of thought. So, here are three questions from various sources that look at this enquiry work from different angles, which is both interesting and thought-provoking:
What is limiting future possibilities or favouring the system’s evolution in a certain direction, with what degree of impact and with what level of resistance? (The Cynefin Co.)
What is happening, where, who is involved, how is it happening, and why? (Systemic Design Toolkit)
What is happening inside and as a result of the system across levels, time, technical and social dimensions? (Sorry, I can’t remember the source.)
The work is a lot like anthropology, which is a holistic discipline that looks at the past, present, and future of humans' and communities' behaviours through time and space and in relation to physical character, language, social relations, patterns, processes, culture, and interactions with non-human ecosystems. If I had my time again, I would have trained in anthropology a few years ago—and still might.
As you go forward, you will build confidence, but never believe you have certainty. It is unlikely that you will get completely to the bottom of the issue in the time you have. This point connects to the Cynefin framework’s ‘probe-sense-respond’, i.e., you will learn more when you act. In any event, the system will adapt under your gaze and also as a result of your engagement with it. I think it was Donella Meadows who said diagnosis is an intervention in itself!
Overriding Principles
To inform this article, I did a meta-analysis of the many frameworks I’ve encountered over the last decade in my work in this area. This led me to the principles below. There is some duplication across these as there is a crossover between various frameworks.
Your own worldview will limit your ability to see, hear, and feel without bias. So, seek diverse perspectives and lenses and question your own sense of meaning.
It’s all about people (even in the emerging world of machine learning). So, ensure you do not give the system agency.
In a system, purpose informs the flow of Functions -> Structures -> Inputs -> Processes & Practices -> Outputs & Waste -> Outcomes. So, explore value creation.
They are complex and adaptive, where everything and everyone is interconnected. So, hold a system mindset and avoid reductionism in the hope of making your life easy and your story simpler.
History matters for people (path dependency). So, look horizontally back through time for phase shifts and forward in time to emerging forces.
You are working in nested systems (macro, meso and micro). So, look up and down levels.
There is a permeable intangible boundary to adjacent systems. So, look for interrelationships and impacts from across this boundary.
The system is composed of three general levels: the landscape, the regime and the niches of innovation. So, look up and down these levels.
There is the current pattern (H1), the transitional innovation and activities (H2+/-), and the desired future patterns (H3). So, look for the emergence in the existing.
The delays in the system impact outcomes and transition. So, look to where and why they occur.
When you uncover some causality, don’t take it at face value, as the root cause may be counter-intuitive. So, trace cause and effect across time and space
Data points will reveal a system's health, and human stories will unveil the causality. So, look for the bridges between the two.
There are critical flows in the system - materials, energy, information, capital, talent, etc. So, look at the volume, quality and equity of these flows.
You will be working in a socio-technical-ecological system. So, look for the interconnections between humans, tools and papatūānuku.
In the system, hard data, PESTEL forces, worldviews and discourse, and myths and metaphors exist side by side. So, make sure you’re open to all of these and recognise the significance of the last two.
Maps in this work are tools for sensemaking and visuals to support storytelling. They are usually different from each other. So, use maps, but be careful! (See my earlier post about system mapping.)
Inspiration
This is not an exhaustive list, and I apologise to anyone I left off, but my personal inspiration and capabilities have come from the following people, organisations, and material.
Griffiths University Centre for Systems Innovation
School of System Change
The Cynefin Co. - Estuarine Mapping and the Cynefin Framework
Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, OECD
Donella Meadows - Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System and Dancing with the System
Collective Impact Forum
Toby Lowe, Centre for Public Impact
C.S. Holling, the Adaptive Cycle
I. Røpke, E.Trist, K.Bamforth, F.Emery, Sociotechnical Systems, 1940 / 2016
F.W. Geels, Multi-Level Perspective Model
John Sterman, Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modelling for a Complex World,
John Kania, Mark Kramer, Peter Senge, FSG, The Water of Systems Change,
Sharpe, B., A. Hodgson, G. Leicester, A. Lyon, and I. Fazey, Three horizons: a pathways practice for transformation 2016.
Amanda Fenton and Meg Wheatley and Deborah Frieze - Berkana Institute, A Theory of Change: Two Loops, 2012
Peter Jones and Kristel Van Ael, Design Journeys Through Complex Systems Practice Tools for Systemic Design, 2022
Sohail Inayatullah, Causal Layered Analysis, an integrative and transformative theory and method
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