Learning to see systems
Systems thinking, mapping and leverage points.
Three hours on learning to see systems: stocks, flows and feedback, mapping with the people affected, system archetypes and choosing leverage points that matter.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 3 hours
- Where
- Systems Leadership
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Leaders tackling recurring problems such as homelessness and health inequality
Overview
Problems such as homelessness and health inequality sit across many organisations, and no one of them can fix them alone. This programme develops the habit of seeing the system. It introduces what a system is through Donella Meadows, wicked problems and Cynefin, then the grammar of stocks and flows, feedback loops, delays and the iceberg model, with the NHS waiting list and failure demand as examples. It moves to mapping the system with rich pictures, causal loops and boundary questions, Senge's system archetypes, and finally Meadows's leverage points, illustrated by the Cardiff Model and Wales's carrier bag charge.
Aims
This programme aims to develop leaders who look beneath recurring problems to the structures that produce them. The shift it seeks is from blaming people or pushing harder on weak levers to mapping the system with those affected and choosing where change will genuinely make a difference.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain core systems concepts, including stocks and flows, feedback loops, delays and wicked problems, and use them to diagnose a recurring public service problem.
- Map a system with others using rich pictures, causal loop diagrams or actor maps, and recognise common archetypes without turning them into blame.
- Assess where to intervene in a system using Meadows's leverage points, distinguishing shallow parameters from deeper goals, rules, information flows and paradigms.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Explain what a system is, using elements, interconnections, purpose and boundary, and distinguish tame problems from wicked ones.
- Analyse a cross-boundary case such as Everyone In to identify what changed, who was involved and what the system had not been seeing.
- Explain how stocks, flows, reinforcing and balancing loops and delays shape the behaviour of a public service system over time.
- Distinguish rich pictures, causal loop diagrams and actor maps and choose the right one for the stage a group has reached.
- Describe the six common system archetypes and identify the loops, delays and side effects that drive each one.
- Explain Meadows's twelve leverage points grouped from shallow to deep, and why most organisational effort goes to the weakest.
Built from 2 parts.
3 hours of learning.
- 01Seeing the wholeSystems thinking and system mappingBitesize3 modules
- 02Where a small push goes farSystem archetypes and leverage pointsBitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Systems Leadership topic, also sold whole as Leading the whole system.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 3 hours, £69
- Next stepExplore, Seeing and shifting systems, 5 hours 30 minutes, £129. Already own the Focus? You pay £60.
- The whole topicImmerse, Leading the whole system, 11 hours, £249. Already own the Focus? You pay £180.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms
Also part of: Beyond our own walls