Problems and solutions; parameters and constraints

My last post on the distinctions between systems thinking, design thinking, and systemic design generated some fierce discussion about the definitions of and boundaries between these different practices. The challenge with these conversations is that these concepts are, and have always been, fuzzy and contested. Bring me one person who is convinced that design thinking has a fixed definition, and I can show you another who disagrees, however slightly, but is unwilling to concede the common ground.

It is easy to acknowledge that boundaries and definitions are not black and white, but much, much harder to agree on how we should manage the grey. Human beings have a strong dramatic instinct toward binary thinking, a basic urge to divide things into two distinct groups, with nothing but an empty gap in between. Designers and systems thinkers are only human after all (I know..!), so maybe we should not be surprised that we too sometimes struggle with the grey. But instead of being defeatist about the limits of being human, this is an opportunity to turn our own tools back on ourselves to ask:

how might we develop a language to help us communicate about the fuzzy, overlapping boundaries of our practice?

Again, this is something I am unlikely to be able so answer in one blog post, but here are some preliminary thoughts about building a shared language for the grey. A good first step is to examine how systems and design thinking each understand the systems they are looking to change: how do they understand and structure complexity? What are the fundamental elements of each practice, and what does that tell us about the way they understand the world?

Problems and solutions; parameters and constraints

When it comes to design thinking, most people are familiar with the Double Diamond, popularised by the Design Council—a clear, comprehensive and visual description of the design process. The two diamonds represent a process of exploring an issue more widely or deeply (divergent thinking) and then taking focused action (convergent thinking). 

Acknowledging there are endless variations on this core idea, the fundamental building blocks of the design process are problems and solutions. Moving from problems to solutions is not necessarily linear. Solutions define problems as much as problems define solutions. Designing thinking encourages testing, learning, iteration as the designer moves from left to right, and back again.

Being explicit about the nonlinearity of design practice helps to position it as overlapping with how systems thinkers understand and seek to change the world. For me, though, there is a key difference in the role nonlinearity plays in these different practices. For designers, it is the relationship between problems and solutions is nonlinear. We are constantly getting feedback on how products and services are working as we iteratively improving them. For systems thinkers, it is complex systems themselves that are nonlinear. Within a system there are patterns and processes of variation, that oscillate and shift over time within particular constraints. There are no problems and there are no solutions, only changing dynamics within the system.

This may seem like splitting hairs, but the deep mental models associated with our language matter—they shape our assumptions about what systems are and how we might influence them. Before we can properly understand a system, we need to ask the question: “system of what?” Whether implicitly or otherwise, the practice of design tends to structure the world as a system of problems and solutions. Systems thinkers fundamentally do not see it that way.

Different paths; common ground

Recognising systems and design thinking start from profoundly different points does not preclude the possibility of common ground—a common ground the design community is increasingly calling systemic design. The challenge is here to meaningfully incorporate systems into design (and use design to challenge systems!) rather than creating a conceptually-confused hybrid that does justice to neither tradition.

When it comes to the role problems and solutions in systemic design, our ATO systems-led design model intentionally does not mention them at all. In Understand the System, our purpose is to “explore the key forces and patterns driving the systems behaviour” and in Design the Change our purpose is to “discover leverage points and develop innovative strategies for change”. We recognise the process is nonlinear and evolving, with no fixed start or end. Of course you will occasionally hear ATO designers use the language of problems and solutions in their day-to-day, but they do this in the context of searching and designing for the deeper patterns and processes of variation within a system.

These limitations of language and expression are part of what makes the practice of systemic design exciting. The work is in attempting to give structure, at varying levels of abstraction, the to the grey; constantly iterating and experimenting with the boundaries and overlaps of different practices; striving to make sense of the complexity we can never fully grasp. At the end of the day, perhaps it is in our shared limitations that we will find our common ground.