In the previous posts in this summer series, we looked at what it means to understand complexity and how it affects our world. In this post we connect systems thinking, strategic design and transformation together to show how they fit and why its useful to think of them together.
Much of our professional world is like sailing in that we have a vessel (people and resources) that we are commanding and, together, we are seeking to journey through a wide, ever-changing sea while dealing with wind, currents, and weather. Sometimes this journey is smooth-sailing, and other times not. And, like the oceans, things can change quickly. In this post, we continue our look at strategic design and complexity and how to understand it within the context of our current challenges.
To build on this metaphor, let’s look at how we navigate going into port, weaving through the traffic, and settling in on a design.
What makes strategic design distinct from strategic planning or organization design is that it’s focused on using design methods and tools to create capacity to achieve specific objectives, goals, and aims. While tactics play a role in getting people from here to there, they are in service of strategy. And strategy requires we consider the people, places, and things that shape how tactics can be deployed.
That means thinking in systems.
Systems exist all over. They represent the interconnections and relationships within boundaries (context). A system can be a small team, a unit, an organization, a market, or entire ecosystem. It’s all of these and, depending on what we seek to do and understand, that defines what boundaries we choose.
Boundary Setting
Boundary setting in systems thinking involves defining what is included within the system being analyzed versus what exists in its external environment, which fundamentally shapes how problems are framed and solutions are developed. These boundaries are often fluid and context-dependent rather than fixed, requiring systems thinkers to consciously choose boundaries that are most useful for understanding the system’s behavior and achieving desired outcomes.
Where do we put the boundaries?
The guide I offer clients and my students when setting a boundary is this: if you’re looking outside of the boundary for explanations for why something happens and doesn’t, you’ve bound your system too tightly. If you’re lost among all the data and components, try a tighter boundary.
To use the previous example of units of analysis, this would mean determining if the right boundary is a unit or team. In practice, it might mean choosing to focus on a specific clinical division within a healthcare centre, than a specific clinic.
A good system boundary is one that enables you to make sense of what you see (and sense), to learn, and to make choices that influence what you’re seeking to transform. For more on boundaries and how to work with them, I’d recommend consulting the work on critical systems heuristics.
System ‘Types’
Much of what we’ve focused on in this series are those systems that exhibit or experience high levels of complexity. Not every system operates this way, however, it’s critical to know what kind of systems you’re working with in order to make sense of how to approach how we might transform things within them. As I’ve written about before, frameworks like Cynefin can be enormously helpful in making sense of the ‘type’ of system you’re engaging in. By type, I am referring to qualities and behaviours that are exhibited by the system. The Cynefin Framework is an enormously useful and simple means of helping ‘type’ the system you’re in.
For more details, I’d highly recommend Chris Corrigan’s ‘tour’ of Cynefin and other resources from Cynefin practitioners.
Bob Williams and Richard Hummelbrunner’s excellent book on systems concepts in action also serves as a useful resource for employing Cynefin (and other systems theories and frameworks) in strategic contexts and evaluation practice.
Complex systems, as discussed previously, exhibit a high amount of non-linear relationships. This means that causes and consequences are not easily detected or understood. Complex systems are also prone to including disproportionate influences that can tip or shift the system dramatically and quickly. New behaviours and patterns are likely to emerge from the many layered interactions within these systems. This means that the system you start with isn’t the one you end with.
This makes complex systems feel volatile and introduce much uncertainty. This has implications for how we bring about change, leadership and transformation.
Bringing in Design
Design is about creating things with intention and foresight to address a current problem with a future solution. For instance, customers or patients may find registration systems confusing. To address this, we might design improved workflows, markers, and processes within that system to make future visits easier. Our efforts today are intended to influence what happens tomorrow.
Designing for the future requires some level of foresight to anticipate how our design choices and actions shape what comes next. Complexity introduces uncertainty, which means that any design we create requires attention to flexibility. Strategic design for complex systems requires use of methods, tools, and approaches that are different from systems with low or little complexity.
For example, if you are to design for a manufacturing process in a closed system (a factory), you might employ a different set of ideas than you would in designing for the supply chain supporting that factory in a world where trade, transportation, and tarriffs are changing rapidly. One (the factory) is likely to be stable. The other (the supply chain) is likely to have far more variation and suceptibilty to outside influences and is more unstable.
Strategy in Complexity
Strategy is a coherent set of choices that positions you to win in a chosen “playing field.” It entails making explicit assumptions about how those who seek to serve and engage with (e.g., patients, clients, customers, and competitors) will behave, and how you’ll seek to influence outcomes, whether or not you have complete control.
Systems thinking looks at the whole (and parts) and a strategy must be integrative to be effective. Strategic design views strategy in systemic terms, seeking to create — by design — a choice architecture, action plan, feedback and learning systems, and set of outcome goals and metrics to guide your actions. It involves all of this.
This is what distinguishes strategic design from strategy or organization design. Or, as Tim Brown puts it:
“Strategic design is the application of future-oriented design thinking to business strategy, organizational vision, and innovation intent. It addresses the question ‘How should organizations position themselves to create future value?’ ” – Tim Brown
I add that it also involves systems thinking and behavioural science to understand the context and the activities that support transformation in that context.
Transformation (and Behaviour)
Transformation is moving from what is to something else. Strategic design ensures that this is done with intent, care, and attention to detail with a plan to learn, adapt, and improve. More typical approaches are aimed at creating a plan, launching a plan, and then evaluating the plan.
A transformation requires some kind of Theory of Change (formal or not) to guide what you design for. A theory of change (capital or not) is a fundamental idea of why certain actions, resources, decisions, and structures — when organized (designed) — are expected to produce certain outcomes (and what those outcomes are).
Transformation thus involves attention to behavioural variables, systems behaviours and constraints and architecture, and the context (complexity levels). Without these, you end up with a plan that is devoid of evidence to support its implementation and realization and you do it out of the context in which it’s deployed. It’s almost as if you are recommending people who don’t know how to swim to read a book on it and then throw them in the pool and expect them to be Michael Phelps or Summer McIntosh.
These are things to consider when you’re looking for transformation in systems. Next in our journey, we look at the future — and specifically, the role of foresight and futures thinking in strategic design.
Thanks for reading.