The essence of seeing systems is to think in circles rather than in straight lines. This is especially important when looking at societal issues and challenges, as well as large organizations.
Your assignment is to choose a large system and map the feedback loops, e.g., how one thing affects another. (The reason I’m having you do this is to identify the processes and relationships that form/evolve in systems. These can parallel what we see (on a smaller scale) in organizations.)
The essence of seeing systems is to think in circles rather than in straight lines. This is especially important when looking at societal issues and challenges, as well as large organizations.
There are no rules re: complexity or how big it should be or what it should be about, because it needs to be interesting to you for this to be a good exercise and I cannot define that. You just need to be willing to share it with a few other classmates in breakout rooms, as you’ll be asked to do that in our live session.
Examples of possible systems for mapping include, but are not limited to:
● The systemic issues in some current social issue or challenge (urban poverty,students at risk, alcoholism or drug abuse, ethnic conflict, etc.). Here’s a video version of mapped systems issues in the educational system.
● One of the classic examples from On the follow of rewarding A, while hoping for B (Kerr, 1995) would make excellent subject matter
● Any leadership triangle scenario would make a great map as well or one of the cases from that course.
● Back in the day I mapped my family’s feedback/control systems as an exercise for my therapist (Dr. Perkl), it was incredibly interesting and useful for helping see how to disrupt the parts of that system that were damaging and make new patterns to move forward.
● Any scenario involving power/influence/resources/control from your own life you want to explore and try to figure out can be a great candidate!
MORE Examples: Still not sure what a system’s map is or how to complete one? Here are some resources:
● Example: System Map of Human Exploration (note that the arrows are all labeled to indicate how things affect one another)
● The System is Us from the Interaction Institute
● Line Diagrams and System Maps from The Open University
● https://medium.com/disruptive-design/tools-for-systems-thinkers-systems-mapping-2db5cf30ab3a
