Every Systems Puzzle Tells a Story

In Systems Thinking, things or factors are dependent upon what is around them and can change over time.

Yoel Ben-Avraham, the team leader for our Jerusalem Vision Systems Practice project, provided the viewpoint of a 67-year-old Jewish man with a good sense of historical perspective. Yoel brought up the idea of ”targeting” and asked, ”Who's ’forces’ are we going to explore?” Though I initially agreed with the idea of ”targeting,” I came to realize that our use of the term was being misapplied.

People can sail to different ports by “targeting” their destination and using the existing knowledge of wind and currents to get them there. It is a matter of performance. However, somebody had to first study those winds and currents to understand how they would influence ships and write that down for others. It is then a matter of exploration and learning. Our mission at this point in the process was not to paint targets on the wall but rather examine the forces that lead to those “targets”. Systems Thinking, especially the early stages of Systems Practice is set in the explorer stage. The questions of "how to" would be dealt with separately, later in the course and would need to be even more so, after it.

We started to express some of the factors and influences or as the Systems Practice course termed it forces that affect the system. Not in an attempt to reconfigure the system, in this case, Jerusalem, into a desired state, or target certain factors to change into a shape we believed to be better but endeavoring to understand the forces that constitute the system in its present form purposely avoiding coming up with hypothetical enablers. We were seeking to understand what creates the forces which maintain the system in its current configuration without passing judgment on either side.

One should then, from an overall perspective, take a system in its totality so one side isn’t predetermined as being more important than another in the maintaining of that system. At the same time, both sides, all sides need to be understood from their own perspectives.

We would do this partially through the S.A.T. (Structural Attitudinal Transactional) analysis of factors which provides another lens on understanding the system, and its component causal loops, under inquiry. Examples and explanations of a general nature were provided in the previous post. We also needed, among others, the perspective of a 24-year-old Palestinian man trying to raise a family and recognize what he sees as reality or truth. Not to prove it right on its own but to recognize it as a force perhaps Attitudinal in nature and perhaps arising from Structural forces or influencing or causing Transactional forces. Unfortunately, we had to attempt to imagine it rather than actually obtaining it.

Within a current system, each factor would play the role of cause or effect and usually both but that was not being determined at this point. What was initially attempted was to determine whether a factor could be seen as enabling the system or inhibiting the system.

One of the primary issues though, in my experience, that Systems Thinking seeks to address is the tendency of people to only look at factors in immediate or near-immediate approximation. The Systems Practice course does not seem to emphasize this enough, at least in my opinion.

The cause-effect or causal links between factors then can be repeated in extended upstream-downstream relationships. Systems Practice seems to want to establish this prior to actual mapping which I have admitted is not something that I am adept at. Each upstream factor identified has to have at least one and perhaps more downstream factors related to it, it has to be upstream to something. It is the upstream cause to some downstream effect.

One could ask the question the other way. The test of downstream is whether it is the effect or result of something upstream. Choose a downstream effect and ask what are the upstream causes of it but don't stop there, ask what are the upstream causes of that, then again ask ”And?”.

In many instances, if one goes out far enough, one discovers that the connections circle back onto their origin. So factor A connects to factor B which connects to factor C which then connects back to factor A. People may be paying attention to A and B but not to C and therefore not understand why things are not improving since A increases B, not realizing that while B may also increase C, C decreases A. What we have then visually under Kumu is a loop, in this particular case a balancing loop as discussed in the Donella Meadows “Thinking in Systems” series.

There is now a causal loop that is persistent which means that every factor in the loop could be considered both an upstream cause and a downstream effect depending upon the designated state of the system.

Kumu refers to these causal linked factors as degrees and defaults to being able to extend three degrees or three causal steps though one can go out further connecting factors within different loops together. It is by getting past immediate or near-immediate causal relationships by which Systems Thinking can provide greater insight. Systems Practice does this through a collaboratively constructed vision.

Both upstream and downstream factors involve change through causal steps that are either positive in that it results in an increase or negative in that it results in a decrease of something. Whether that change is positive in a good sense or negative in a bad sense depends upon context. Loops are, however, more than just their factors, including their connections can result in emergent aspects within themselves and within the system overall.

This configures into what I think of as patterns of persistent causality. These loops or patterns of persistent causality can be thought of, to my mind, as system entities the same as factors also having an influence on the rest of the system in their own right beyond their component factors.

We want to then label factors with names that are neutral in terms of increase or decrease so that we can determine a direction based on the factors influencing them, so as to be able to discover emergent forces and what the course calls the deep structure of the system which is highly unlikely if one is stuck with a particular perspective from the start.

What then may be an enabling force in one loop may become an inhibiting force in another related loop. In this aspect, Systems Practice may be somewhat weaker for those with less experience in Systems Thinking because they don't extend their inquiries far enough or openly enough.

A philosophical argument can be made whether connections need to truly be a causal relationship with 100% correlated mathematical certainty or it if they could be highly but still qualitatively correlated. Systems Dynamics would lean, heavily, to the former, Systems Thinking would arguably allow for the later being more open to qualitative inquiry. The question is how strictly does one define causality. Is it only 100% proven correlation or do we explore first with less rigid criteria and then endeavor to prove with more stringent?

The course also organizes these factors into Themes, another partial lens. A theme is a collection of commonly related factors and forces. Themes do not necessarily have a causal connection between the factors making them up, they are part of a group for other reasons thought relevant to the system. They are often not quite yet Causal Loops. To be a loop, those forces and themes need to be organized into persistent feedback configurations. Causal steps, however, according to Donella Meadows, “Thinking in Systems” do not have to feedback to be a system. Causally linked thematic pathways then can connect different causal loops together in my view.

Kumu does not have a direct translation for Themes but it can visually represent Themes by classifying factors (and connections) by type or tags and assigning a particular color or size when defining the view for that systems map.

In the Systems Thinking Certification course, factors, from a more social perspective needed to persuade others, could be thought of like characters in a novel interacting with other characters with arrows showing causal connections and forming sub-plots through loops. The themes and causal loops together can form subplots which will form a plot and eventually a rich story when put together through a dynamic system map. Yeu Wen, the course catalyst for the Plastic Pollution Thailand project, suggested thinking of factors themes and as nouns and verbs in a sentence (well maybe adjectives, adverbs and nouns with connections as verbs). Rob Ricigliano, the course instructor, in one of the course’s videos, also said that we can think of the process in some ways as building a story, a deeper story that is inclusive of all.

We cannot fully tell the significance of a specific factor or idea until we see how it plays in the entire system map (story). I doubt that we can fully do it for all factors as individuals with, especially complex systems. From a Systems Thinking point of view though, the supposed facts on the ground, especially if they can be continuously debated, are not necessarily the most important factors. The different mental models held by different groups can be of even greater importance. Overcoming those mental models is perhaps the most significant impact Systems Practice can have.

Systems Practice - Practice Can Mean Making Mistakes and Repeating to Learn from Them

The latest Systems Practice project ”Jerusalem Vision” dealing with Jewish Palestinian relationships has been approached from around the edges in the last post and the two preceding. With this post we will begin zeroing in. As always, this blog is not intended as a substitute for the course. Instead, it takes more of a bird's eye view to see how it might relate to other aspects of new community paradigms.

For me, Systems Practice is basically applied Systems Thinking, thought experiments with pictures (graphic systems maps) using alternative forms of cognitive navigation to steer through challenges, especially wicked challenges. This again needs to be recognized as a sizable cognitive shift for many. Though it can be far more intuitive than might be expected. A favorite metaphor of mine for this new thinking is navigation during the Age of Discovery, a paradigm shift as notable as modern man’s mission to the moon as told in How We Got To Now with Steven Johnson / Time (Emmy Winner). We still need all of our existing “sailor skills” but we are adding a new layer of mapping skills based on a new way of looking at the world.

I still consider myself as having a limited background in Systems Thinking. Many if not most people taking the course though were even less familiar with Systems Thinking and far more familiar with the usual linear reductionist approach to understanding which means breaking things up into smaller pieces for ostensibly better control. The challenge then is developing a means of helping others to cross over to a more holistic, Systems Thinking approach or in the case of a systems practice approach through a group process. I still don’t believe that there is a strong enough foundation in Systems Thinking provided at the beginning of the Systems Practice course and introducing the systems mapping tool Kumu at the very start could help with that. Those with less experience in Systems Thinking may have problems with Systems Practice but those with that do have that experience will still need to be open to taking different perspectives.

Despite any issues raised in the last post with the article A Systemic View of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and its related systems map, its author David Peter Stroh is also recognized as the author of ”Leveraging Grantmaking: Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Social Systems”, concerning the Calhoun County, Michigan study, which used Systems Thinking to address homelessness. The report was cited in the blog post Learning to Apply a Systems Practice to the Wicked Problem of Homelessness and has also been cited in the past when discussing Collective Impact and other times since then.

The Calhoun study looked at the “whole system," not one system for funders, one for providers and another for everybody else. The community’s incentives structure existed to provide quick fixes to address the immediate problem, rather than creating sustained change. One study observation was “The most ironic obstacle to implementing the fundamental solution was the community’s very success in providing temporary shelters and supports.” Systems Thinking was used to determine where intervening with higher level approaches such as housing first could effectively occur. This approach worked even with rising unemployment in the area. Stroh also wrote an insightful article on “Exposing the Hidden Benefits of Business as Usual: Why the Status Quo is So Difficult to Change,” which can also be seen as being applicable to a Systems Practice effort.

This is the third completed Systems Practice project. Waiting this time until the end of the Systems Practice course before blogging allows for a bird’s eye view of the entire Systems Practice process. It also allows inclusion of the other past Systems Practice projects found in the New Community Paradigms Systems Practice wiki-page, which include “Addressing Homelessness in Portland, Oregon” and “Addressing Plastic Pollution in Thailand” as well as looking at Systems Practice from a more philosophical perspective categorized as ”Systems Practice UK”.

The SP UK course’s more philosophical indoctrination did help to realize some important insights more fully. One is appreciating the difference between people finding themselves in a complex system and those finding themselves in complex situations, recognizing that these aren’t mutually exclusive. People in the actual applicable problem situation will have different perspectives from those considering the relevant more abstract system in which those situations arise.

The project Plastic Pollution in Thailand and the UK Systems Practice more philosophical perspective gave rise to my own perspective that Systems Practice (SP USA) is not a philosophy. It is a playbook. They actually have a playbook, Systems Practice Workbook Omidyar Group that describes the process undertaken in implementing a Systems Practice approach to deal with wicked problems (the impossible of the course’s title). It has no issues with taking from any of the different Systems Thinking approaches, whether ontological, epistemological, soft or hard explored in the Systems Practice UK series that suits its pragmatic purposes.

The “Addressing Homelessness in Portland, Oregon” project was an extension of the ”Financial Modeling and Last Mile Homeless Food Truck” project and I was the team leader. With ”Plastic Pollution in Thailand, I joined a group, with an already established focus, which unfortunately broke up before the end of the course though I still brought the project to a conclusion. The most recently completed project was the one most in line with the ideas behind ”Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking.” The topic Palestinian and Jewish relationships in the City of Jerusalem was chosen democratically among the eight members of the group out of nine possible topics.

The greatest value the previous two Systems Practice projects brought to the Jerusalem Vision project is what was done wrong or went wrong in those projects. Before the first Systems Practice course, I had worked solo and still tend to do that. Systems Practice though significantly informed and induced me to substantially change the approach I took when working with a group.

My first mistake with Systems Practice was creating a systems map using Kumu far too early in the process before the course had barely started. I came with my cup perhaps too full, putting me out of alignment with the course and with being able to collaborate with the others on the team I was supposedly leading. It took a while to realize that the differences were due to Systems Practice's attempt to focus on group interactions in coming up with solutions.

A primary issue that Systems Thinking seeks to address, because of a tendency of a reductionist approach of breaking systems into smaller components, is to only look at factors in immediate or near-immediate approximation instead of following causal pathways further out to discover hidden relationships. What may be a positive causal force at one point of the system may then become a negative causal force at another point. Systems Practice does address this though perhaps not explicitly allowing its process to reveal any Systems insight.

This doesn’t mean the analysis by reductionism is completely abandoned. The first assignment of the SP course, USA Plastic Pollution in Thailand had us present our system challenge through a Complexity Spectrum, consisting of selecting within spectrums of polar choices.

• Level of Understanding: Well understood vs Not Understood
• Engagement: Consensus vs Diversity of Opinion
• Environment: Stable vs Dynamic
• Environment: Self-contained vs Interconnected
• Goals: Small Scale vs Broad Change
• Goals: Short-term vs Sustainable

Although any relational mapping with Kumu was delayed, using a different mapping program, Plectica allowed for the creation of a map which reflected the Complexity Spectrum’s hierarchical nature and that provided spaces for each of the members of the team to provide their individual input. It fitted rather well with the course assignment proving in this instance, more helpful than Kumu.

The latest “Jerusalem Vision” project didn’t repeat this Complexity Spectrum but we still had an analytical perspective brought to the team through our team leader Yoel Ben-Avraham who has a background as a Systems Analyst. With the latest Jerusalem Vision project, we used RealTime Board as suggested by our team leader Yoel. It had some features similar to Plectica and despite being spread across the globe, we were able to witness the movement of the different factors we had gathered into common themes while collaborating together in real time.

Factors and themes, as well as forces, enablers, and inhibitors, are among specialized terms Systems Practice introduces to help define their group-oriented approach to Systems Thinking. Before, however, getting into that the course first had us establish some common visions of the challenge we were about to address.

Searching for a Systems Map to a New Jerusalem Vision

In the previous post, the systems maps included in the article A Systemic View of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by David Peter Stroh in the Systems Thinker were introduced for the purpose of comparison and contrast with the newly developed Systems Practice Jerusalem Vision systems map, based in part on the article Eastern Jerusalem: End of an Intermediate Era by Dr. David Koren, Advisor to the Mayor of Jerusalem for Arab and eastern Jerusalem affairs.

This post will be focusing especially on systems maps and in particular, the Conflict systems maps by Stroh. Both the Conflict maps and Systems Practice map use Causal Loop Diagrams.

For better explanatory purposes of a complex issue, a Kumu presentation based on the Stroh maps replicated using Kumu is provided below.


Keeping in mind, it is through an explanatory method, graphically organized with certain rules, that cannot be said to be widely familiar outside certain circles and serves as a medium for a formal means of thinking, systems, often even more unfamiliar.

The Kumu version of the A Systemic View of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict maps combines the two maps in Stroh’s article into one map. Other than that, the Kumu map should accurately reflect his map but this claim should also be verified. There are some resulting differences that arise which need to be made apparent since they will be the basis for any critiques.

The +Acumen Systems Practice course uses plus (+) and minus (-) signs in combination to connect two of what Systems Practice calls factors or what Kumu calls elements to reflect the type of change taking place in the causal relationship. Stroh uses a means of connecting factors together that was developed by Peter Senge. Two factors are linked together in a cause-effect relationship with a connection that is designated with either S as in the two factors move in the same direction or O as in the factors move in the opposite direction. What is not made immediately apparent is whether those factors are both increasing or both decreasing for the S connection or which factor is increasing and which is decreasing for the O connection.

This means Stroh’s approach reflects two different possible relationships while the systems Practice approach has four different relationships. The underlying complexity is the same with both just more apparent with Systems Practice.

The differences between the two systems maps range not only from different mapping techniques but also their different approaches to the issues in general, which when combined together tell different stories. The two systems though are still interrelated and their respective maps can provide insights into each other. There are some important differences between the overall scopes of the two maps that need to be noted.

First, the Conflict maps were developed from a single perspective while the Systems Practice map was drawn from multiple perspectives. More perspectives mean more complexity.

Second, the time periods being taken under consideration are different. The actual system being described went through a number of changes between the two periods which is to be expected with a wicked problem.

Third, the boundary of the two systems maps is different both systemically and geographically. The Conflict maps attempted to address a larger more global political issues across a multi-jurisdictional geographic space, while the Systems Practice map addressed factors contained within the neighborhoods, especially the Arab neighborhoods, of East Jerusalem.

The Stroh maps are more institutionally focused and although suggesting to be speaking of people in a general sense, the only agents capable of instituting the recommended changes are institutions or their leaders. Within the Systems Practice map, Dr. Koren’s writing can be seen as distinguishing the differences in the approach for the Jerusalem Vision of the two systems as “Jerusalem of Above” for the Conflict map and “Jerusalem of Below” for the Vision map respectively.

There wasn't any attempt to list Israeli factors on one side of a ledger and Palestinian factors on the other side. The Conflict maps combine both Israeli and Palestinian aspects of the system into single factors. Every factor in the Conflict map is mutually based on both the Israeli and Palestinian aspects of that situation. This means that factors lack situational context or specificity in how they are interrelated with each other creating, in my view, a sense of false equivalency, limiting potential causal pathways and causing confusion when traveling a loop’s path.

Both of Stroh’s maps put the factor or element ”Threats to right of Israelis/Palestinians to exist” as the focus of the maps. The Systems Practice map does not have such a focus on a specific factor. The Systems Practice map does though, in addition to configuring the factors into causal loops as does the Conflict map, also organize factors into what Systems Practice terms as Themes. Themes are basically related factors but not necessarily sharing any causal pathway or set within a causal loop. These themes, with one debatable exception, were not focused on or ranked.

The Systems Practice approach avoids lumping factors by label or blending them together based on different aspects or perspectives to make them more homogeneous. Factors under Systems Practice then retain a certain independence or isolation from specifically serving solely one side of the system conflict or the other until their influences within the larger system are determined. They are often shown to have counterparts that they were either influenced by or that they influenced or both. The Systems Practice approach, as it will be shown in more detail in future posts, disaggregates factors and then seeks to develop fresh connections between them to provide new insights. This also enhances complexity.

The R1 loop, which Stroh presents separately in the article from the other loops, is set as reinforcing, whether or not depends on how it is structured. At least it doesn't have a stated goal as might a balancing loop but its means of continuous increase, of what is unclear, is constantly thwarted in a Sisyphean manner over two opposing hills.

The first hill, Stroh’s Balancing Causal Loop B2 contains two factors or elements, the “Retaliation, containment policies, armed resistance, and incitement” and then the aforementioned ”Threats to rights of Palestinians/Israelis to exist” on one side of the loop which he asserts are causally related or at least highly correlated together and move in the same direction.

The B2 ”Goal of reclaiming all land” moves presumably in the same direction so that an increase in the factor ”Retaliation” (against the other side) means that ”Threats to rights of Palestinians/Israelis to exist” or (the other side) similarly increases until that side’s goal is met. Independently, however, the B2 loop does not achieve that goal.

The next connection, instead, is defined with an opposite O connection, if ”Threats” go up then ”Retaliation” goes down. It counteracts the overall accumulation of the loop, so balancing, not reinforcing so that neither side can reach its stated goal. This means that ”Retaliation” decreases for no apparent reason based on the B2 loop itself. This doesn’t make practical sense to me.

It is the R1 loop that arguably makes the next loop B2 a balancing loop and causes the second half to be set as an O connection. If ”Threats to rights of Palestinians/Israelis to exist” were instead to increase “Retaliation” then the loop would become reinforcing.

It is the ”Loss of life” in R1 that assumedly can be seen as being too excessive by both sides inducing a return to the ”Negotiation” tables, temporarily decreasing ”Retaliation” until the point in the R1 loop that again results in ”Promises are broken” diminishing the ”Effectiveness of the peace process”.

The second hill, balancing loop B3 also has a goal, the ”Goal of Peaceful Coexistence”. It has an O or opposite relationship with ”Threats to rights of Palestinians/Israelis to exist” diminishing it has the result of ”Mutually acceptable agreement for peaceful coexistence” increasing.

The lessening of threats moves in the same direction as ”Negotiations” increasing the chances of the creation of a mutually acceptable (written ) agreement for peaceful coexistence so that the ”Goal of Peaceful Coexistence” is actually met. Again, the loop is influenced by the R1 loop which disrupts the ”Peace-seeking process” with ”Broken promises”, stochastically it would seem, diminishing the ”Effectiveness of the peace process” and returning the system to B2.

The next loop in the Conflict map R4 enhances “Violent response from the other side, hatred, mistrust” raised through “Retaliation” within B2 thereby again increasing the “Threats to rights of Palestinians/Israelis to exist”. It is also the last loop to directly impact “Threats to rights of Palestinians/Israelis to exist”. The remaining two reinforcing loops R5 and R6 are more like negative catalysts, both being initiated by “Violent response from the other side, hatred, mistrust” but moving in different directions against ”Negotiations” and the "Mutually acceptable agreement for peaceful coexistence” respectively.

Stroh passes over examining a number of factors and determining how they might influence the system. Stroh systems strategy to addresses all of this is to have a tipping point of everyone involved unilaterally and completely drop any ”Goal of reclaiming all land” and ceasing all "Threats against Palestinians/Israelis” by eliminating the connections between certain factors but he doesn't provide the factors that would be able to accomplish this.

Stroh’s systems maps work to support what appears to be a predetermined goal making a seemingly intractable problem intuitively accessible and relatively simple to understand. He is correct, the current strategies are dead ends. However, his strategy of systems change has little likelihood to work for those who need them. The Jerusalem Vision systems map will concern itself with a smaller scope of focus and will be far more complex within that focus but will still need to be judged on the same standards of being understandable, comprehensiveness and efficacy.

Gathering Factors and Forming Themes for the System in Question

The system in question is one responsible for the production of plastic pollution in Bangkok, Thailand. The focus of the project being undertaken as part of the  "Systems Practice: A Practical Approach to Move from Impossible to Impact" or SP USA course. It should be pointed out again, as has been done in the past, that these blog posts are not intended to be a substitute for the course, only a single perspective on it.

It should be kept in mind that the team’s Framing Question is:

"What forces account for the current levels of plastic pollution in Bangkok?"

We agreed as a team that those factors which maintained or increased the levels of plastic pollution are enabling the existing system and that any forces that decreased the levels, such as developing such means of decrease, were inhibiting factors. This is where cognitive diversity came into play, as we provide a number of different perspectives others may have their own alternative perspectives.

In the blog post before, the Google spreadsheet Factors Themes Grouped used to collect the team’s suggested factors for the system, was provided. Before getting to that though let’s take another look at the content of the particular situation we are addressing.

The Google Sheet also contained Plastic Pollution Top 20 (second sheet at bottom). The twenty countries listed are responsible for 83.1% of the total mismanaged waste going into the oceans according to the Science article “Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean”. The Science article is the source for placing Thailand in the sixth position for polluting the ocean with plastic. However, we need to be extremely circumspect before making any judgments on accountability. It depends upon what is being measured.

If sorted by actual Mismanaged Waste (mmt/year) or million metric tons as the Science article does then China is in the first position and Thailand is in the sixth position. If sorted instead by the percentage of waste mismanaged then North Korea is in the first position and Thailand moves down to the twelfth position just below China.

If Mismanaged Waste (mmt/year) is divided by Population (millions) that would equal Per Capita Mismanaged Waste (mmt/year) which puts Sri Lanka in first position and Thailand in the fifth position. This is presumedly premised on the population along the coast, not the entire country, and waste generated being susceptible to polluting the ocean.

If there is a percentage of Mismanaged Waste (mmt/year) then there has to be a Total Waste (mmt/year) generated which if calculated would then place the USA in the first position and moves Thailand to the eleventh position. China moves back up to the second position.

Finally, Total Waste (mmt/year) divided by Population (millions) equals Per Capita Total Waste which still puts Sri Lanka first position with the US moving into second and Thailand moving down to eighth.

As an end user, the USA generates greater total waste through production and consumption but does a better job of addressing it. The waste being generated by Thailand is a result of export and economic expansion. This suggests that having a viable waste management infrastructure is a major factor.

Thailand is only a part of a global, economic production/supply chain/consumption system and the aggregate waste impacts the entire planet.

I tried getting my head around the essence of the problem that we were attempting to address, especially in Bangkok, Thailand but geography can be seen as one variable among many. There are more fundamental aspects of the system.

The fundamental problem, in my view, is that in a consumption economy geared towards the creation of consumable products plastic is a non-consumable component. A consumption cycle is used primarily for the delivery of an actual consumable product (basically either immediate consumption as in food packaging or longer-term consumption as in the use of durable goods) that is for the most part based on individual wants, needs and choices.

The plastic, therefore, has no real value to the end consumer on its own. It is an added cost to the producer, who would if possible not go to the expense of adding it except the consumer expects it and retooling is likely seen as too expensive. This added to the fact that the cost of plastic is a relatively upfront cheap alternative to what is basically part of the product delivery system minimizing the overall costs. Once the product is consumed then the plastic has no value to either the consumer or to the original producer. The plastic is then outside of the consumption cycle and the backend costs of removal go up. The effect of plastic pollution, however, is collectively felt requiring global collective action without any established system to do so.

The Google sheet we created for the project consisted of six columns.

• Author
• (Enabling) Factors
• Themes
• Inhibitor/Enabler
• SAT - Structural / Attitudinal / Transactional
• Upstream or downstream

Factors included were those currently at work in the system, purposely avoiding placing the focus on a desired future state instead of the current even if more dismal one or coming up with hypothetical inhibitors. Within the current system, each factor would play the role of cause or effect or both but that was not being determined at this point. Whether a factor could be seen as enabling the system as in maintaining and increasing plastic pollution or inhibiting the system as in diminishing or decreasing plastic pollution is what could be determined. Did a factor maintain the mismanagement of plastic waste or did it diminish it?

Factors could also though be categorized for deeper SAT analysis later in the process as:

• Structural, the physical and social environment as well as political, social and economic institutions and infrastructure
• Attitudinal, widely held beliefs, values, norms and intergroup relations that affect how large groups of people think and behave and attitudes or beliefs
• Transactional processes used by and interactions among key people 

The actual connections between factors representing causal relationships or forces had not been established. Factors could be grouped together first as either enablers or inhibitors and then categorized under common characteristics or what the course called themes. Themes illuminate the related forces at work within the system.

The team came up with six enabling themes and three inhibiting themes. These would be revised at a later point to what is currently reflected in the Google sheet. With Steve’s input the top six of the initial list were prioritized:

1. Consumer [enablers of current system functioning] (E)
2. Social Apathy (E)
3. New social awareness (I)
4. Government (E)
5. Social Enterprise/Business (I)
6. End-of-Life - [of plastic in production cycle] (E)

At this point, we were still working on the spreadsheet with a list of factors and themes. The next step was to categorize each factor as to whether it was upstream, or caused some other factor in the system, or whether it was downstream or was an effect resulting from some other factor in the system. Other, mostly Steve came up with a set of configurations. I, admittedly, found it very confusing trying to visualize and keep the potential relationships in my head. I needed to draw it out and the best tool for that was Kumu.

The columns of the Google sheet were then repurposed and exported to an Excel sheet. Factors became Label (for elements, the visual representations of factors), Themes became Type (of element) and the other columns were to be combined under Tag. The Excel sheet was then imported into a blank Kumu map. This was not part of the Acumen course but something learned prior and outside of it. 

The result was instead of a list of items a sheet with a group of labeled circles. The circles were then searched for and selected based on type or theme. Each theme was given a different color and different size according to priority. It was then that these factors, categorized by themes, were visually organized, by upstream and downstream configuration. The result is here. The more precise nature of the upstream/downstream relationships between factors had not been established yet.

The first part of this blog post is very concrete, the number of tons of plastic waste being put into the ocean. The second half is far more abstract. In many cases, the actual content does not matter, only the configuration of relationships. Tying the two perspectives together is easer if one has gone through the process themselves. The next step is to configure the pathways into circles or loops of persistent causality.

Finding Our Stars Near and Far to Navigate the System

This is the third post on the current Systems Practice course, what Acumen is calling A Practical Approach to Move from Impossible to Impact and what I am calling SP USA. There hasn’t though been as of yet any use of what is usually considered systems thinking tools, particularly systems mapping tools such as Kumu or Insight Maker to reveal systemic relationships. Plectica was used but primarily as a quick sketch to help organize information on a more analytical basis. Before systems mapping though, we needed to establish some system mindsets, including seeking system health, not mission accomplished, seeing patterns, not just problems, unlocking not imposing change and being adaptable.


Systems Practice Mindsets from Systems TOG on Vimeo.

The SP USA course takes its time to have participants in the process work together prior to committing to mapping the destination and journey they wish to take. The first step was having the fellow travelers have to come together.

The first post of this series called attention to the Kumu map Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking as a possible template under a community governance model. This turns out not to be the case. Although there was a diversity of different ideas there was not a diversity of differing ideas as there was with the first Systems Practice course, likely because there are fewer people this time. The Kumu Community Based Virtual Collaboration map may be a more applicable model because of our geographical separation. Each member of the team could be seen playing a different role. Steve Kennedy and Sander Fleuren could be seen as experts, Dohn Taylor and Shawn Ng as community activists though external ones, and I could be seen playing the role of a New Community Paradigms advocate. As such, there is no claim on my part as to the in-depth subject knowledge of the experts or the passion of the community activists. Simply the belief that using systems thinking or more specifically systems practice would add notable value to the process.

When first thrown together, we did not have a common vision. That slowly began to come together through the creation of the Complexity Spectrum and our, what might be considered online brainstorming. An issue, as mentioned in the last post, was that the ideas were not being directed at a better understanding the system under question but rather finding silver bullet solutions to the problem. It had been a matter of reacting rather than proactively planning to navigate to a desired future state by a Guiding Star and a Near Star as well as a Framing Question.

Yeu Wen, our course catalyst, introduced in the last post, again provided advice:

"Guiding stars are best described as a vivid future state that provides a direction rather than measured goals. In that respect, do every member of your team share a common understanding of the difference between a system state that is healthier than a previous state? In your case, a less plastic-polluted state than another? Counting plastic items is not a good idea. So what is?

The framing question can be more targeted towards discovering the forces at the bottom of the iceberg, i.e. the beliefs and perceptions of stakeholders. Here in also lies the crux of the direction your guiding star can provide :-)"

He made the point that there is more to being healthy than merely not being sick. He recommended the use of the "Systems Thinking Iceberg", which I have also found useful. Another resource is "Donella Meadows 12 places to leverage systems" which also emphasizes paradigm shifts in the beliefs and perceptions of stakeholders.

Guiding Star (The aspirational state or desired future)

We are trying to move the City of Bangkok and the entire country of Thailand from both being blighted by and blighting oceans with plastic pollution to being plastic pollution free.

One discussion was on whether our focus on the locale for the Guiding Star should be larger than Bangkok. One consideration was whether Bangkok, as an instance of a system being described, was basically segregated or isolated from the rest of Thailand, suspected by me to be due to rapid urbanization, and how this might have impacted other areas in Thailand. Is the mismanagement of waste solely within the region of Bangkok or merely its impact? Or conversely, the source is Bangkok but the impact is spread across fishing communities along the coast?

Those more recently familiar with Thailand due to travels there agreed that the problem of plastic pollution is not exclusive to Bangkok but also extended across the country. There was also though the perspective that Bangkok is segregated and stand-alone from the rest of the country. It is by the far the largest city and has problems that are unique or at least magnified compared to other cities in the country. It can be noted that Bangkok is twenty-one times larger than the second largest city Nonthaburi

An implication considered of broadening the guiding star would be to influence the selection of solutions or business models working in a close-knit metropolis would likely not work in rural areas and visa-versa. Another question was whether the social entrepreneurs were local or from the outside through international agencies? The working assumption regarding the social entrepreneurs is that they are local.

Not having included entrepreneurs, particularly social entrepreneurs, more prominently in the Complexity Spectrum became to be seen as a mistake. Entrepreneurs can be seen as being part of a system and capable of being integrated into the larger social system and therefore should be considered. Systems of weak entrepreneurialism will operate differently than those with strong systems. However, at this point, how they would be integrated was not clear.

Near Star (near-term 5-10 year desired but provisional outcome)

Stakeholders, who can affect and are affected by plastic pollution in Thailand are able to work effectively toward the elimination of plastic waste.

The first Near Star we came up with was:

Bangkok city actors are able to work effectively toward reducing plastic pollution.

As a recovering city bureaucrat, the term “city actors" sounded too institutional or government oriented. The more community-based term “stakeholders” was suggested though it can have similar issues. It can include community actors but often from the perspective of those in power.

The aforementioned Rwanda article, "Smugglers work on the dark side of Rwanda’s plastic bag ban" is a good example of unintended consequences arising from not really understanding the system that is being changed in great part from imposed top-down solutions, without concern for the economic needs of those at the lower rungs of the economic ladder. The imposed solution was made though through the concept of Umuganda which, although a top-down government intervention, is based on a grassroots community legacy.

The term stakeholder was decided upon with the definition being an entity that can affect or is affected by the wicked problem contingent with being as inclusive as possible.

Steve came up with the final version of the Framing Question.

Framing Question (focus on understanding a system to be analyzed)

What forces account for the current levels of plastic pollution in Bangkok?

When coming up with ideas there is an attempt to prototype ideas that could be considered by the entities working on the ground in Thailand.

Having no current first-hand knowledge of the situation, one tries to be as open as possible. There will no doubt be a great deal of groundwork required before attempting to actualize the insights of the systems map, bringing to mind the work of Ernesto Sirolli. So everything written here needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt, making endeavoring to remain open to new and alternative pathways important.

My approach was with very broad brush strokes having limited familiarity with the topic. Each of us had a different perspective even if limited by differences in knowledge. With this particular assignment, we didn’t want to be using one common set of answers for everybody. This meant some ideas were similar and arguably could have been combined stripping away supposedly minor differences. However, according to Professor Scott E. Page, diverse groups outperformed groups of the best individuals at solving problems because “smart individuals” tended to think similarly, "diversity trumps ability". Retaining the diversity allowed for multiple causal pathways to be developed.

We then began the process of individually coming up with inhibitors and enablers and then grouping them to create themes and pick our top ones for SAT analysis. Next, we focused on the factors and worked both backward and forwards— asking both what that factor causes and what causes that factor— so as to later in the process to assemble them into feedback loops. In terms of mechanics, we used a Google spreadsheet to gather the data with which we each came up.

Using Systems Practice to Unravel Complexity (Hands on)

The previous post dealt with some of the more conceptual aspects of managing complexity through a group process. Week four of the SP UK course, which this blog is addressing after week 5, deals with the more hands-on aspects of creating different types of systems diagrams or systems maps, what they can do and why to use them. The course describes a systems diagram as simply a special arrangement of words, symbols and lines of one sort or another that expresses someone’s thinking about what has happened or about how certain things are or about how they might be. It is meant to help to express one’s thinking about some situation or some system.

Writing and speech are the usual means of expressing thinking, systems thinking adds systems mapping or systems diagraming providing a more visual mode. The SP UK course sees all three as means to basically the same thing with the capacity to convert one to the other, highlighting different aspects.

Text (or speech) can run linearly along a line of print in a single dimension. So branching of complex ideas requires navigating complex grammar but such arrangements of words are hard to take in and hold in the mind. One reads or hears one phrase at a time, followed by the next in an algorithmic step-like fashion, requiring holding the overall structure of a description in one’s head making important interconnections difficult to pick out and to express. This often necessitates that text contains lists, sub-sections, and tables in some hierarchical format. The NCP Wiki follows such a format as does this blog, while the NCP Kumu Map does not (being closer to an influence map).

Diagrams can be very different from text or speech, expanding in dimensions on a visual basis making working with complex connections easier. It is arguably easier to comprehend the ideas of other people, especially in a group setting, by displaying the ideas in a diagram and then discussing them, than it is with either only speech or writing. It is scanned more easily by a group of eyes when projected on to a screen, messaging information to the eye based on its shape even before fully decoding the details.

Drawing a diagram can serve as a simple representation of a situation to help sort things out for one’s own use or a diagram can be a draft statement, as a basis for explaining what you think to other people. A diagram can also be created by several people working together, displaying differing viewpoints, allowing new common perspectives to emerge, conflicts to be discussed and expert knowledge of different members to be harnessed.

Another advantage a diagram has over especially text is that the phrases or flow of information in a diagram can be followed in different sequences triggering new insights, suggesting creative viewpoints and making holistic interpretations. One can choose to start following a path within a diagram from anywhere to anywhere it may lead. As one finds out more about a situation and understands more, one can add things at the fringes of the diagram or in between existing components of the diagram.

Drawing a diagram though, can according to the course, often require two different, difficult but still related tasks. First is getting the thinking straight and knowing what it is you want to express. The second is choosing an appropriate way of representing those thoughts

The SP UK course asserts that a diagram is never finished nor completed, but merely accepted as being the most useful representation so far, again echoing George Box. In truth, putting in too much should be also be avoided. It is far too easy, for myself included, to put everything into a diagram, losing the fundamental point of saying something clearly and economically.

A diagram is a compromise between breadth of scope, depth of information and clarity of presentation all of which should be kept in balance according to the SP UK course. One should try to focus on the purpose, what it is trying to achieve, by adding a title that sets out what the diagram is all about. The layout of a diagram is as important as the composition of a picture, using as a picture does different colors and sizes to differentiate between kinds of things.

Here is the somewhat summarized course instructor's set of diagraming best practices, and as admitted by him, not necessarily exhaustive. Diagrams can take several endeavors to help one’s thinking and understanding in learning about a situation, expect new insights and expect to redraw to incorporate those new insights. A diagram is not just words and lines but space as well. Cramped diagrams are always unclear, spread out. Use recognizable diagram types, especially if unfamiliar. Each diagram should have a title describing the type of diagram it is and its purpose. Use a key to explain different sorts of lines or label the arrows, if the meaning of lines and arrows is not fairly self-evident. However, diagramming is not an exact science but a craft skill with a distinctly personal element, developed through practice. Clarify your own purpose in drawing a diagram. What aspects of the issues you are considering are you trying to represent? This is essential when you are to choose an appropriate type of diagram within which to work, though this is sometimes a challenge having started the exploration before knowing the destiny.

Below are various types of systems diagrams or systems maps. Systems Maps seems a more general term, essentially a snapshot of the system and its environment at a given point in time. The main use of systems maps is helping one to decide how to structure a situation and to communicate to others your perspective of that system. A map may convey no more information than a list of components but because it can be easier to grasp it can have more impact. The different types of systems diagrams or maps listed below seem to move along a continuum of increasing complexity and information robustness. A distinction can also be made between focusing on issues of structure, with spray diagrams, systems maps and influence diagrams which sometimes include 'agents' or stakeholders but little or no detail on their precise 'agency' and focusing on issues of agency, multiple cause diagrams, causal loop diagram and stock and flow diagrams, illustrating the agency (the process) of change. Various causes of a certain event or situation are represented, and relationships between variables in a given situation are investigated. The definitions are taken from the SP UK course and other sources. Different uses, among many, of systems mapping, include Kumu Systems Mapping, An Introduction to System Mapping by FSG and Systems Mapping Disruptive Design.

Spray Diagrams are used to represent the structure of an argument, encapsulating relationships between the ideas of others or for note-taking. A simple fast technique for getting ideas down without being concerned about details of the structure.

Rich Picture Systems Diagrams, explore and express situations through diagrams to create a preliminary mental model, helping to open discussion and to come to a broad, shared understanding of a situation.

Influence Diagrams serve to represents the main structural features of a situation and important relationships existing among them. Influence diagrams can be developed from a systems map by adding arrows or as the starting point for a multiple cause diagram by determining a clearer definition of the type of influence.

Multiple Cause Diagrams explore why a given event happened or why a certain class of events tends to occur or why something went wrong or keeps recurring so that steps can be taken to prevent its recurrence. While not intended to predict behavior, it may be able to develop a list of factors to be aware of when considering comparable future circumstances. A multiple cause diagram, focusing on actual causes over a period of time showing the causes themselves and how they are interlinked, goes a step further than an influence diagram which describes the capacity of structural components to exert weak and strong influences at any one time.

Before going further, there is a need to confess that any critiques, implied or not, concerning the course's approach to complexity, especially dynamic complexity were not warranted. The course is intentionally designed not to deal with a level of dynamic complexity, especially as envisioned by the recently completed Complexity Explorer course. The SP UK course, therefore, does not include either Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) or Stock and Flow Models (SFMs) as both of these are seen as being tools more for Systems Dynamics.

Causal Loop Diagrams consist of four basic elements: variables (Kumu elements), links between them (Kumu connections), with signs showing how they are interconnected, and loops with signs showing what type of behavior the system produces, representing problems or issues from a causal perspective, making one more aware of structural forces producing puzzling behavior. The difference with multiple cause diagrams, as far as I can discern, is that causal loop diagrams involve reinforcing and balancing feedback loops which arguably would make the system persistent over time.

Stock and Flow Diagrams are also used in system dynamics modeling. Dynamic behavior is thought to arise due to the Principle of Accumulation, more precisely, this principle states that all dynamic behavior in the world occurs when flows accumulate in stocks.

These two aspects of addressing the complexity of situations and systems could be seen as different sides of the matter. There could also be seen to be a chicken and egg relationship in developing an understanding with a better understanding of one enhanced by the other, which comes first though is another question. An unaddressed question is what dynamic tools are out there to assist in this endeavor? The two are Kumu and Insight Maker though there are many others.

Using Systems Practice to Unravel Complexity (Conceptually)

This section of the SP UK course focuses on the diversity of activities considered to constitute ‘managing’ in working with others involved in a complex situation. More specifically, managing undertaken by a systems practitioner of both the complex situation being investigated and the relationships between those involved in that complex situation including the systems practitioner. The course asserts that systems thinking can simplify complexity by taking multiple partial views but admits that this needs some explanation. The process being undertaken by this blog could be deemed asynchronous co-learning because again, it is not meant as a substitute for actually taking the course.

An unfolding network of conversation and relationships. ‘Managing’ involves maintaining a network of asynchronous relationships in the context of an ever-changing flux of events and ideas. As any manager engages in one conversation, others are engaged in different conversations. As individuals participate in different conversations a coherent network of conversations results (adapted from Winter, 2002, p. 67 and p. 83).

Many complex situations involve many different people with different perspectives. Understanding multiple perspectives involves first recognizing and acknowledging one's own worldview then reflecting on the relationships one has with the other participants and with the complex situation itself. Although this is hard to do for other people as we cannot truly experience or know their perspective on the world as they see it there are tools and techniques which can help you ‘imagine’ what those other perspectives might be. We can use systems tools and approaches to bring out other people's perspectives in ways that respects and represents their views. This, however, entails its own challenges.

The course advises besides being clear and explicit about one’s own point of view and considering different perspectives, using techniques such as systems mapping or as termed by the course systems diagramming as a means of mediating the different perspectives.

A particular type of systems diagram then is used to get participants to structure and capture their own thinking about a given situation and that diagram with any accompanying or recordings is then a set of perspectives for grounding a systems investigation.

Involving others through a diagram, according to the SP UK course, can take two main forms, co-creation of a collective diagram and using a diagram as the focus for a mediated discussion of the situation that the diagram represents. While agreeing with both techniques being powerful in helping those involved to gain a shared understanding of a situation by drawing out the different perspectives, they don’t seem truly separate but more intertwined. Co-creation is arguably always the better option as people own what they create but a systems practitioner with more experience may also have to meditate at certain times to allow co-creation to continue.

This, according to the course, depends on the relationships involved and whether one is taking the role of a ‘manager’ who is part of the situation or of a ‘researcher’ who is an observer of the situation or better to my mind both. Furthermore, it shouldn't be thought, in my view, that there is only one manager or one researcher. All participants can take on these roles to some extent.

The course advises that as a ‘researcher’, “One needs to understand and acknowledge the limitations and constraints that a particular diagram brings to your study and to build in processes that ensure a reasonable degree of robustness to the information gathered and how it is analyzed and reported”.

Contribution to a group process includes proposing new ideas, seeking clarification, providing information, summarizing what has been said, providing support for other people’s ideas, and being open to other people’s arguments. Impeding a group's effectiveness could include attacking other people’s suggestions, being perhaps very defensive about their own suggestions, talking at the same time as someone else and talking aimlessly without adding to the discussion.

If several people work together to produce a single diagram as their perspective on a system then they have to find some way of coming to an agreement, which takes one of two paths. Either they aim to achieve functional, but superficial, conformity, which was my primary concern with Systems Practice US and other forms of democracy by app or algorithmic programming, or they take the time to aim for a deeper consensus.

Sometimes behavior and action can be changed as a result of thinking being changed without any need for explicit, written action points. Often though it may require developing a negotiated set of actions for moving on to say implementation, as in connecting ideas together for strategic application to begin overcoming what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton called the Knowing-Doing Gap.

The course cites C. W. Churchman (1971) who identified nine conditions for assessing the adequacy of any purposeful system's design. He argued that these conditions must be fulfilled for a system to demonstrate purposefulness. These nine conditions were later reordered into three groups of three conditions each, with the addition of each group having a particular corresponding category of social role – client, decision-maker, and planner. Churchman seems to have never named the groups themselves.

Werner Ulrich (1983) later added two allied categories "role-specific concerns" and "key problems” with each of the associated social roles. Ulrich also identified each group with a term reflecting a primary source of influence - motivation, control, or expertise for the social roles of client, decision-maker, and planner (or ‘designer’) respectively. The course sets the groups of Churchman & Ulrich’s purposeful system's design roles, conditions, and influences in Table 1 provided by the SP UK course here.

Although purpose in relation to such a system’s approach is addressed, the focus of the section is more on ‘involvement’ in a purposeful system's design which is being interpreted as the influences a social role has and what influences that social role, along with other associated categories.

The decision was made to create a systems diagram or systems map, as featured the previous week of the course (but to be dealt with in the next post) based on Churchman & Ulrich’s purposeful system's design chart, using the Kumu mapping system. The emerging objective came to be moving from an apparently complicated, management-oriented but constrained configuration to a more complex and while still contained more unbounded configuration requiring greater collaboration.

This presumes though others are not only familiar with systems diagrams or maps but also familiar with the Kumu mapping program. If several people are all contributing to the development of a diagram then it’s likely their knowledge of the particular diagramming technique, their disposition towards it, and expectations of what will come from it will be different.

This is in addition to asking others to have changed their basic vantage point of thinking primarily longitudinally or by reductionistic and algorithmic means instead of expanding their perspective by thinking latitudinally or more holistically in their own understanding of the situation, as discussed in previous posts, and being able to apply different systems thinking methodologies.

For this reason, a Kumu presentation, intended to explain to anyone unfamiliar with Kumu navigation, was created (finally, after lengthy but lackluster good intentions), as well as a Kumu presentation on the alternative systems maps, of Churchman & Ulrich’s purposeful system's design, conveying the information in more of a story format. The intention is to break down the complexity into smaller chunks. This still adds a good deal of data though beyond the complex issues themselves with which others must contend.

When the purposeful system's design is placed graphically on a page, the three groups can be seen as separate, with a particular source for which there is one for each group, in the center. The three conditions for a particular group are placed then around with each one connected to the source, each other, and a corresponding category. It is these categories that are most apparent to the world. This worded explanation is arguably not as intuitive as the picture should be.

This section of the course dealt in large part with abstract, conceptual ideas of managing complexity and creating purposeful system design but it addressed these issues through the hands-on approach of diagramming, at least conceptually if not practically. This is the main difference between the SP UK course and the SP US course with the later putting far greater emphasis on hands-on group diagramming. Different types of diagrams will be the focus of the next post.