A case for Systemic Design
The need to incorporate Systems Thinking into the Design Thinking process, to address the unintended consequences of our designs.
With the rise of new technologies, overpopulation, climate change, globalized economies, etc.- the systems that we are designing are increasingly more complex and interconnected. We need new, sustainable solutions to aid in these challenges that incorporate transdisciplinary perspectives. There is also an apparent need to shift the oddly myopic focus from humans in the center to humans in the middle and placing attention to the other areas impacted by our work. Systems Thinking, integrated into the Design Thinking process, appears to be a promising approach to this complexity and to address the unintended consequences of our designs.
To create meaningful interventions, you must first understand the context of the system in which you are designing. Design thinking has a bias towards developing products and services that later may become problems in a system’s context. The integration of Systems Thinking, into the Design Thinking process, gives context to the scope of design work and enables the creation of more meaningful and intentional solutions. It is a means of embracing the chaos and explore the interconnected complexities of the system.
Design thinking is a reductive approach to problem-solving, that may lead to the creation of unintended consequences. In contrast, systems thinking is a holistic lens to view context, all while taking into consideration the interdependencies and relation of all elements. “It is the ability to see the forests from the trees, and using that information to make decisions.”
Every Designer is a Systems Designer *they just need a mindset shift.
A system is a set of interconnected parts that work together in an organized manner to achieve a common purpose (Meadows, 2009). Simply put, a system is comprised of three things: 1. Elements, 2. Interconnection of elements, and 3. Purpose of the system. The concept of systems has been a part of design theory and practice from the very beginning of its inception.
Every Designer, regardless of their worldview, discipline, and approach to design, will recognize that the above-given definition of a system is a characterization of (1) the foundation of a problem for design inquiry; (2) a product or service; (3) the methods of design practice; or (4)” the strategies, contextual engagements, and economic, social, and cultural interdependencies that must be addressed in theory and practice” (Buchanan, 2019).
Every product and service is a system composed of parts, working together to accomplish a common purpose. Jones and van Patter recognized this and proposed the classification of four distinct design domains increased by level of complexity. Level one being the least complicated system, describing “Traditional design” being artifacts and communication consisting of the graphic display of typography, imagery, color, and pattern, on a poster or designed digital interface. This distinction is then categorizing a graphical interface as the least complicated system of design. As the scale of complexity increases, the need for a more holistic understanding of the system in context also rises.
The four design domains characterized by increased complexity:
You have to understand how the system was built, and how the parts of the system interact with each other, not how they perform independently, in isolation. “While systems may be influenced by external forces, the way they respond to these forces tend to come from their inherent characteristics” (Meadows, 2009). Unless designers see how systems operate and create their own problems, they won’t be able to identify and address the root causes.
Design Thinking
Tim Brown described design thinking as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the Designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success”. Human-centered, in contrast to being technology, or organization, centered. Design thinking can be seen as both a mindset and a tool used to empower people to gain empathy towards real human needs. The design thinking process is seen as using an iterative process that moves form generating insights by empathizing with users and stakeholder, to idea generation and testing, all the way to implementation. It has been noted as a reliable problem-solving process that can be used as a way to structure innovation and solve problems.
From Reductionism towards Holism
Design thinking appears to be a reductive approach to problem-solving. Its failure as a holistic approach is due to the “human-centered” nature of its focus. Design thinking based methodologies do not appear to offer the peripheral view of system context needed to realize the potential creation of other problems while solving the current design challenge. The very solution that the design team may be proposing may also be the same challenge people will be trying to solve in the future. There appears to be a potential need to shift from reductionism to holism. A holistic lens to view context, and the encompassing system that designs are intended to fit. All while taking into consideration the interdependencies and relation of all elements. The ability to zoom in and out of complexity, being user-focused while simultaneously being systems-focused (Senge, 1990).
What is Systems Thinking?
Systems thinking is uniquely positioned as both a mindset and a problem-solving approach capable of handling the inherent complexity of societal problems (Russell Ackoff, 1974). It allows designers to adopt a holistic perspective through a specific set of assumptions and premises and has the potential to incorporate differing world views because it prioritizes a transdisciplinary approach to problem-solving and understanding complexity.
There is a debate currently in the field of Systems Thinking around what it is, exactly. The question of ‘is it a mindset, tool, methodology, approach, or theory’ is still being debated. At its simplest form, it is “seeing the forest from the trees and using that vision to get things done” (Senge, 1990). “At the conceptual end of the spectrum is the adoption of a systems perspective or viewpoint. You are adopting a systems viewpoint when you are standing back far enough — in both space and time — to be able to see the underlying web of ongoing, reciprocal relationships which are cycling to produce the patterns of behavior that a system is exhibiting” (Richmond, 1994). “Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static “snapshots” (Senge, 1990).
What does Systems Thinking mean for Designers?
Systems thinking in the design process shifts the designers gaze from focusing on individual elements towards encouraging taking a step back and seeing the entire picture. No longer just looking at individual components like interfaces, products, mindsets, or services but attempting to view the system as a whole. Systems Thinking is an approach for getting “beyond cause and effect to patterns of behavior that surface the cause and effect, and further for identifying the underlying structure responsible for the patterns of behavior” (Senge, 1990).
The understanding of systems is core to Gestalt psychology; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. “Improving the performance of the parts of a system taken separately will not necessarily improve the performance of the whole; in fact, it may harm the whole” (Ackoff, n.d.). “Installing a Rolls Royce engine in a Hyundai can make it inoperable” (Ackoff, 1994). You can’t just improve parts of the system in isolation and expect better results. Systems Thinking is a school of thought that explores the interdependencies amongst elements in a system while accepting them as a unified view of the whole. “It focuses on the feedback loop structure of a system because that structure determines the system’s behavior over time” (Lyneis, 1995). “By integrating systems thinking and its methods, Systemic Design brings human-centered design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems” (Jones, 2014).
Systemic Design
Incorporating systems thinking into the Design Thinking process is an emerging field, typically referred to as ‘system-oriented design’, ‘system-led design’, ‘or ‘systemic design’. This article will refer to it as Systemic Design.
Systemic Design means having the necessary context needed to make decisions and being able to switch between a holistic understanding of the system and stakeholder and user needs. The Design Thinking process is typically seen as a means of innovating new solutions through a human-centered, or, “bottom-up” approach. By contrast, Systems Thinking is generally thought of as a “top-down” and a big picture view of the ecosystem (Tjendra, 2018). Systemic Design is a transition from known design capabilities such as form, social and user generative research methods, and concept visualization practices towards describing, map, propose, and redefining complex systems and services. It differs from “traditional design” approaches in terms of scale, societal complexity, and integration into large organizations (Jones, 2015).
With a Systems Thinking mindset, the Designer starts to view products and services as not the ‘end goal’ but as different leverage points within the system. Leverage points are places within a complex system, a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem, and so forth, where an incremental and small shift in one area can produce significant changes in everything (Meadows, 1999). Within a systems thinking mindset, there is an acknowledgement that designers are not changing the system. On the contrary, they are empowering the system and giving the system the ability to transform itself through self-regulation (Jackson, 2003). “As designers, we are used to designing closed projects and solutions that are neatly packaged up and then handed over to the client. That is not what we do in systemic design. To empower the system, [you] come up with an intervention model, with a mix of interventions and many variations, that the system can then adapt, or not depending on its context and work with it, and of course, give the actors of the system a new way of looking at the system. A perspective that is not one side or the other, but a 360 holistic view of it in its entirety “(Tom Bosschaert, 2020). With a systems thinking mindset the idea of “solutions” doesn’t exist. Things are continually changing and evolving, and it refutes the idea of a “solution” or end-state. There are only interventions, which may have positive or negative effects.
Tools to Help You Be More Systemic in your Design Process
- PESTEL Analysis is a tool used to track the environment, strategic market, and underlying factors of context, holistically. PESTEL is a mnemonic which in its expanded form denotes P for Political, E for Economic, S for Social, T for Technological, E for Environmental, and L for Legal (Song, Sun and Jin, 2017). These factors could also be added to a Service Blueprint or a Journey Map.
2. The iceberg model is a systems thinking tool designed to help an individual or group discover the patterns of behavior, supporting structures, and mental models that underlie a particular event.
3. Cluster Mapping is a type of systems map that embraces the exploration of interconnected elements in a system and how they fit together in a larger context. Once you place the actors, elements, nodes, and all components in your system, you proceed by drawing connections and relationships between them. A means of embracing the chaos and explore the interconnected complexities of the system.
4. A Causal Loop Diagram is a holistic visualization tool used to conceptually model dynamic systems, mapping how the system variables interact with each other, via links. This tool is useful in uncovering a systems underlying feedback structure and aid in understanding the forces that contribute to the behavior of the system. “A causal loop diagrams can be thought of as sentences that are constructed by identifying the key variables in a system (the “nouns”) and indicating the causal relationships between them via links (the “verbs”). By linking together several loops, you can create a concise story about a particular problem or issue.” The four elements that comprise a Causal Loop Diagram include: “the variables, the links between them, the signs on the links (which show how the variables are interconnected), and the sign of the loop (which shows what type of behavior the system will produce)” (Lannon, n.d.).
Limitations of Systems Thinking
The limitation of systems thinking for design is that it may be challenging to execute correctly. By broadening the scope of your gaze, and focusing holistically on the system, you may run the risk of thinking too big picture and losing specificity. Systems thinking is an excellent approach for messy and complicated system problems. However, if the issue you are focusing on is relatively simple and well defined, in that case, this will probably not be the right approach. Another limitation is related to time. To truly see the benefits of this approach, its beneficial to see continuity for long periods, not an 8–12 week consultancy project.
Summary
Design thinking based methodologies do not appear to offer the peripheral view of system context needed to realize the potential creation of other problems while solving the current design challenge. Systems Thinking transitions from a reductionist approach to a holistic approach to problem-solving. With a Systems Thinking mindset, the Designer starts to view products and services as not the ‘end goal’ but as different leverage points within the system. Leverage points are places within a complex system, a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem, and so forth, where an incremental and small shift in one area can produce significant changes in everything (Meadows, 1999). Things are continually changing and evolving, and Systemic Design refutes the idea of a “solution” or end-state. There are only interventions, which may have positive or negative effects.
References
Ackoff, R., 1974. Redesigning The Future: A Systems Approach To Societal Problems. Wiley, pp. 237–240.
Ackoff, R., n.d. A Lifetime of Systems Thinking. Systems Thinker, [online] Available at: <https:// thesystemsthinker.com/a-lifetime-of-systems-thinking/> [Accessed 30 April 2020].
Bosschaert, T., 2020. Systemic Design. Systems Innovation.
Buchanan, R., 2019. Systems Thinking and Design Thinking: The Search for Principles in the World We Are Making. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 5(2), pp. 85–104.
Jackson, M. C. 2003. Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers. John Wiley & Sons.
Jones, P.H., & van Patter, G.K., 2009. Design 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0: The rise of visual sensemaking. New York: NextDesign Leadership Institute.
Jones, P., 2014. Systemic Design Principles for Complex Social Systems. Translational Systems Sciences, 1, pp.91–128.
Jones, P. 2015. Design Research Methods for Systemic Design: Perspectives from Design Education and Practice Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the ISSS — 2014 United States, 1(1). Available at: https://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings58th/article/view/ 2353
Lannon, C., n.d. Causal Loop Construction: The Basics — The Systems Thinker. [online] The Systems Thinker. Available at: <https://thesystemsthinker.com/causal-loop-construction-the-basics/> [Accessed 03 December 2020].
Lyneis, D. 1995. Systems thinking in 25 words or less. https://watersfoundation.org/wp- content/uploads/2013/05/Y_1995–08STIn25WordsOrLess.pdf
Meadows, D., 1999. Leverage Points. Hartland Four Corners, VT: Sustainability Institute, pp.7–19.
Meadows, D., 2009. Thinking In Systems. 1st ed. London: Earthscan, pp.1–15.
Richmond, B., 1994. Systems thinking/system dynamics: Let’s just get on with it. System Dynamics Review, 10(2–3), pp.135–157.
Senge, P., 1990. The Fifth Discipline. 1st ed. Doubleday, pp.68–69.
Song, J., Sun, Y. and Jin, L., 2017. PESTEL analysis of the development of the waste-to-energy incineration industry in China. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 80, pp. 276–289.
Tjendra, J., 2018. Systems Thinking Is The New Design Thinking — Business Innovation Design. [online] Business Innovation Design. Available at: <https://businessinnovation.design/blog/ 2018/4/25/systems-thinking-is-the-new-design-thinking> [Accessed 4 April 2020].
