Systemic Design Toolkit

Developed by Namahn and shiftN

Systemic Design Toolkit Guide

What is it?

The Systemic Design Toolkit was officially launched at the RSD7 conference in Turin by a collaboration between Namahn and shiftN. This toolkit provides a set of systems and design thinking tools to support a coherent, but flexible and collaborative process to understand complex problems and design more viable alternatives.

What is it useful for?

• Identifying leverage points

• Applying participatory tools

• Co-creation of solutions with different stakeholders (from government to private organisations)

• Create alignment among different ideas

• Creating visualizations tools and prototyping

Description from Authors:

The toolkit was developed from the understanding that the current society is in the midst of a fundamental shift where the conventional ways of problem solving don’t work anymore. In this sense, this toolkit provides step by step and hands-on tools to analyze complex challenges and co-create systemic solutions following seven main steps:

Systemic Design Toolkit Framework

Framing the system

Setting the boundaries of your system in space and time and identifying the hypothetical parts and relationships.

Listening to the system

Listening to the experiences of people and discovering how the interactions lead to the system’s behaviour. Verifying the initial hypotheses.

Understanding the system

Seeing how the variables and interactions influence the dynamics and emergent behaviour. Identifying the leverage points to work with.

Defining the desired future

Helping the stakeholders articulate the common desired future and the intended value creation.

Exploring the possibility space

Exploring possible ideas for intervening on the leverage points. Empowering the ideas by working with the paradoxes in the system.

Designing the intervention model

Defining the engine for change and its variations. Iterating by envisioning its implementation in different contexts.

Fostering the transition

Defining how the interventions will mature, grow and finally be adopted in the system.

Useful links and resources:

Systemic Design Toolkitwww.systemicdesigntoolkit.org

Downloadwww.systemicdesigntoolkit.org