Contents
Introduction and guidance
Introduction and guidance
What is a badged course?
How to get a badge
Week 1: Systems thinking in practice
Introduction
1 Who uses systems thinking?
2 What are you hoping to learn?
3 Learning by experience
4 Something different
4.1 The nature of systems thinking and systems practice
4.2 Taking responsibility for your own learning
4.2.1 Reflective learning
4.3 Appreciating epistemological issues
5 This week’s quiz
6 Summary
Week 2: Systems thinking and complexity
Introduction
1 Distinctions between messy and difficult situations
1.1 An important ambiguity
2 Distinctions between rational and emotional reactions to situations
3 Distinctions between hard and soft complexity
3.1 Adding to the differences between difficulties and messes
4 Choosing to distinguish between complex situations and complex systems
5 Distinctions between systemic and systematic practice
6 This week’s quiz
7 Summary
Week 3: Identifying systems of interest
Introduction
1 Distinguishing and defining systems
1.1 Building up a definition
2 The language of systems
2.1 Drawing boundaries
3 The naming of systems
3.1 Commonly recognised systems
3.2 Explanatory systems
3.3 Wider systems
3.4 Identifying systems of interest
4 Levels of systems
4.1 Additional ways of identifying a system of interest
4.2 Commonly used criteria
5 Categories of systems
5.1 Simple (purposive) and complex (purposeful) systems
6 This week’s quiz
7 Summary
Week 4: Representing systems of interest
Introduction
1 Setting the scene
2 What are systems diagrams for?
3 Drawing systems diagrams
4 This week’s quiz
5 Summary
Week 5: Understanding multiple perspectives
Introduction
1 Simplifying complexity
2 Taking multiple partial views
3 Perspectives on ‘managing’
4 Perspectives on ‘researching’
5 Collecting information as a ‘researcher’
6 The practicalities of diagramming with other people
7 Facilitating engagement with different perspectives
8 Negotiating between different perspectives
9 Teasing out accommodations
10 This week’s quiz
11 Summary
Week 6: Key systems thinkers
Introduction
1 The development of systems approaches
2 Jay Forrester (1918–2016)
3 Stafford Beer (1926–2002)
4 Sir Geoffrey Vickers (1894–1982)
5 Peter Checkland (b.1930)
6 Russel Ackoff (1919–2009)
7 This week’s quiz
8 Summary
Week 7: Systems thinking approaches
Introduction
1 What are systems approaches?
2 Purposeful and purposive behaviour
3 Comparing two systems traditions
4 Creating experience-action cycles
5 From methodologies to tools
6 Soft systems methodology
6.1 The formal use of SSM
6.2 Distinctions between Mode 1 and Mode 2
7 This week’s quiz
8 Summary
Week 8: Becoming a systems (thinking in practice) practitioner
Introduction
1 What does a systems practitioner do?
2 Modes of managing systemically
3 Clarifying purposefulness
4 Managing for emergence and self-organisation
5 The systems practitioner and systems of interest
6 This week’s quiz
7 Summary
Next steps in mastering systems thinking in practice
Tell us what you think
Acknowledgements
References
Solutions