SYSTEMS THINKING: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS IT? To put it simply, systems thinking is a way of exploring every aspect of a given problem - not just the obvious parts - in an effort to solve it.

For example, if we take a look at the issue below:

Issue: poaching
A traditional approach would be to ask: "how do we stop poachers from shooting and killing animals for their fur, horns, etc?"
A systems approach would be to ask: "how can we empower 'poachers' so that they do not need to poach to survive?" See the difference?

Systems thinking is a change in mindset and approach to a problem. It can appear daunting at first but there are methods and models to make it easier (below).

Fully understanding and getting to the root cause of a problem can be difficult. However, through structured thinking and questioning, we can unpack a problem to better understand what might be causing it and how. Often, the problem isn't actually the problem... The tools above and below are suggested methods of connecting, analysing and unpacking problems.

The following short videos will hopefully give you an understanding of Systems Thinking, along with a few applied examples that will help you to understand it from a very relatable point of view

THE ICEBERG MODEL

Uncover root causes of events by looking at hidden levels of abstractions.

Addressing problems only on their event level is often not enough. The real causes are often hidden from plain sight.

Iceberg model is a tool that allows you to shift your perspective and see beyond the immediate events that everyone notices. It helps you to uncover root causes of why those events happen. That's possible by looking at deeper levels of abstraction within the system that are not immediately obvious.

*Students currently use the model in Design & Technology (Design for Action project)

How to use it

Iceberg model consists of four levels:

Events: what's happening right now? What is the problem (in context)?
Patterns: what has been happening over time? What are the trends? Who is affected and how?
Structures: What's influencing these patterns? Where are the connections between patterns?
Mental models: What values, beliefs or assumptions are shaping the system/problem?

Example:

Let's look at a real-world example to better understand how the iceberg model works.

Suppose there are a couple of bugs in the feature your product team just released. That's a single event. Your instinct might be to react to it and start fixing them. That's obviously not enough if you want to prevent it from happening in the future.

If you look back in time, you see that every released feature comes with several bugs. That's a pattern. Digging deeper, you find that teams don't plan for testing before releasing a feature. The QA only happens after a release. Teams also typically have tight deadlines to ship a feature. These are structures of the system.

Investigating further, you discover that teams value shipping on time over the quality of their work. The tight deadlines are imposed by managers and teams believe it's not their place to push back.

As you can see, by looking beyond immediate events, you are able to find a root cause of a problem. You now have much more leverage for solving the problem.

SOURCE

DOWNLOAD ICEBERG WORKSHEET

Use your notice boards to visually unpack and research your problem by connecting your research and thinking.

CONNECTION CIRCLES

Understand relationships and identify feedback loops within systems.

Connection circles are a tool for visualising relationships in a story or a system. They help you understand complexity by seeing causes and effects in the system.

Connection circles can also help you identify feedback loops – whether reinforcing or balancing.

How to create a connection circle:

Start with a circle on a piece of paper.
Next, identify the key elements of the system you're examining.
How do you know what's a key element? It meets these criteria:
- It's important to changes in the system
- Increases or decreases in the system
- Can be described by a noun
Write these elements around the circle (don't include more than 10).
Look for cause and effect.
- Which elements are directly causing other elements to increase or decrease?
- Draw an arrow between these elements.
- Indicate an increase (draw a "+") or a decrease (draw a "–") for the second element in each relationship.
Find all of the cause-and-effect relationships. These can be based on data or they can be a hypothesis.
Look for elements whose relationships form closed loops. These are feedback loops.

*Students currently use the model in Humanities

Example:

It's best to illustrate with an example. Let's say our product has been dealing with unhappy customers. We know they've been complaining about too many bugs in the product and slow response times from our support (as customers create more support tickets). At the same time, we've been shipping more features to make them happier. Let's use make a connection circle so that we can make sense of this.

From this story, we can identify the key elements: unhappy customers, bugs in the product, response times, support tickets and new features. We'll document them around our connection circle.

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From this story, we can identify the key elements: unhappy customers, bugs in the product, response times, support tickets and new features. We'll document them around our connection circle

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Now we need to document the relationships between them. For example, we know that unhappy customers create more support tickets. More tickets means longer response time which in turn produces even more unhappy customers. We try to ship new features which lower the number of unhappy customers. But they also produce more bugs and those lead to more unhappy customers again. Let's map these relationships to the connection circle.

The connection circle is now nicely showing the key elements of the system and the relationships between them. There's even one feedback loop that we can see here.

The completed connection circle and an identified feedback loop make you better understand the system. This understanding will greatly help you make changes that you need.