Beyond Design Thinking: The Systemic Design Thinking Framework

Design Thinking is a fantastic tool but it encounter its limitations in complex problems with numerous stakeholders. Systems Thinking methodology can support this need, but how to mix the two remains largely unclear. To approach this challenge, I have explored combining both into a single framework: the Systemic Design Thinking Framework. The result is an 8 step process that allows both to approach complex challenges and discover new possibilities in apparently simple ones.

In a recent article, Amy Ahearn offered a comparison of both frameworks in terms of their focus.

As we can see, it is not a case of better or worse, but rather a strategic decision to prioritize either a core group of “users” or “the system”.

However, each framework has important weaknesses, even in its own territory. Focusing only on the core group of users can blind us from spotting alternative solutions or important barriers for implementation leading to unintended consequences, this is called “system blindness”. On the other hand, focusing too much on the system can lead one to feel overwhelmed or lose focus, resulting in paralysis or disappointing results (decisions by committee anyone?).

To explore how the two frameworks can be combined to mitigate their weaknesses, let us look into the specific mechanisms.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking divides work in different steps that focus on either divergence or convergence. The divergent steps orient the team towards generating a wealth of possibilities, either through research or ideation. The convergent steps aim to facilitate selecting among those possibilities.

Creating a specific occasion for each type of logic stops the team members from blocking each other.

A second important mechanism in Design Thinking is iteration. Instead of relying on a one-off high-stakes process, Design Thinking relies on multiple cycles. The aim is to accomplish each cycle fast and prioritize learning over perfection. Doings so reduces the barrier to try new or risky ideas and allows to quickly incorporate the learning from the previous iteration, effectively reducing the risk of innovation.

Design Thinking also provides integration. The first generation of design processes assumed a group of ‘designers’ would pass on a set of instructions they had never tested, ‘the design’, to a separate group of who would, in turn, fabricate it. Unsurprisingly, this leads to many clashes in between both groups over the root cause of any subsequent problem.

In contrast, the second generation of design thinking involves a single group of people that goes through quick iterations of the whole process, reducing miscommunication and culture clashes while accelerating the speed at which a design can be improved and produced.

However. The separation between designers and users, and specially the disregard for other stakeholders or causal chains, can lead us to implement solutions with unintended consequences. As a framework, Design Thinking is not well suited to manage the complexity that multiple stakeholders bring.

Systems Thinking

In contrast, Systems Thinking is based on multiple perspectives. ‘Designers’ are not separated from ‘users’, as multiple stakeholders are invited to the design table. The interactions between stakeholders are facilitated with the use of tools that allow for multiple viewpoints or perspectives to complement and nuance each other, such as System Maps. This results in easier consensus building and buy-in as stakeholders feel listened and taken into account.

Moreover, by focusing on relationships and connections, the tools for System Thinking allow the team to identify chain reactions, feedback loops, or tipping points. This knowledge is key to navigate complexity, avoiding negative consequences and identifying the most effective “leverage points”, where a small force produces a large change.

The Systemic Design Thinking Framework

Blending both approaches, we can generate a process that, like Design Thinking, alternates the focus between convergence and divergence to smooth team interactions, quickly iterates to reduce risks and accelerate learning, while also includes the perspectives from multiple stakeholders and exploits the best leverage points.

As a structure, I have taken the 5 steps Design Thinking Framework as starting point:

1. Empathizing with the user
2. Defining the problem
3. Ideating
4. Prototyping
5. Testing

Then, I bring in the System Thinking contributions:

In our combined framework, the users are multiple, and as such we need to start by figuring out who they are and inviting them to the design table.

Next, we work with them to loosely define “the problem” or challenges we are trying to advance on. This step serves as an anchor and reminder of what originally brought us to look into the system and ensure we don’t get carried away trying to solve too many things at once. When done properly, it is about identifying common needs before moving into the individual needs, which is precisely what we do next by “mapping the system” with all its moving parts and relationships. Systems Thinking has several tools for this purpose, such as flow diagrams, systems maps, and causal pyramids.

Then, we could jump into ideating, but the complexity of the system can easily prove paralyzing or lead to misunderstandings. To solve this problem, we add a convergent step where the team can identify the best leverage points to focus their energy on. This is perhaps the most critical step, and it is essential that enough space is given to everyone involved to reflect on their situation and voice their perspective.

Then, we can resume to ideating, prototyping, testing, and evaluating the results before another cycle of the process that incorporates the knowledge gained, potentially bringing new stakeholders to the table.

Which leads us to:

1. Deep dive into the realities of users and others who come in contact with the challenge to understand who is affected and invite them to the design table.
2. Define the challenge or challenges the team aims to prioritize.
3. Create the space for the multiple stakeholders to give their perspective and generate a map with all the different interconnected parts and actors of the system.
4. Identify the key points for intervention where actions will have a strong leverage and minimize negative consequences.
5. Facilitate a process where the different stakeholders ideate possibilities for a future state of the system where the mess of interconnected problems has been dissolved.
6. Prototype possibilities.
7. Test the prototypes.
8. Evaluate the results and incorporate the knowledge gained into the next iteration.

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