Introduction

Welcome to this free course, Practising systems thinking in practice (STiP).

This course cannot teach how to practice systemically, but it gives a general introduction to the field of the practice of systems thinking. The course complements the OpenLearn course Understanding systems thinking in practice [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Together, these two courses introduce ‘doing’ systems thinking in practice.

Both these courses invite you to express your ideas in diagrams. The numerous short courses listed in the Systems Thinking Hub provide guidance on a range of systemic diagramming tools and techniques. You may find the resources below useful as you make your way through this OpenLearn course:

1. Systems diagramming
2. Guide to diagrams
3. Diagramming for development 1 - Bounding realities
4. Diagramming for development 2 - Exploring interrelationships

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• begin an inquiry into your own experience of practice, and that enables you to acknowledge, value and articulate your prior experience and its concerns
• provide insights into how managing change and making sense of the complex and conflicted ‘ways of the world’ are understood by a practitioner using STiP
• lay the groundwork for how you might engage in practice with others in a social learning context
• appreciate the value of the concepts of critical social learning systems and communities of practice in learning with others.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University postgraduate course TB872 Managing change with systems thinking in practice and draws on the 2nd edition (2017) publication of Systems Practice: How to Act: In situations of uncertainty and complexity in a climate-change world by R. Ison, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7351-9