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Boiling the Ocean: Complexity, Service Design, & Systems Thinking 

Boiling the Ocean: Complexity, Service Design, & Systems Thinking 

- Through the application of Systems Thinking it is evident that a small shift in one thing can result in big changes across the whole.
- Complex problems are the result of interconnected causes with many interlaced unknown factors.
- Intervention within complex issues will typically see new problems emerge as a result. - Efforts to impose change will result in a partial positive impact. However, in the long term, there will likely be negative unintended consequences if changes are not integrated well into the system.
- It is only when there are structural changes being made to a system that we begin to see a positive sustained impact across all areas of the system as well.

Andy Polaine

July 02, 2020
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  1. Boiling the Ocean: complexity, service design, & systems thinking ©2020

    Andrew Polaine Future of Now Andy Polaine – Service Design & Innovation Training and Coaching Andy Polaine 2nd July 2020
  2. ©2020 Andrew Polaine These are not the flowers you think

    they are Image source & ©: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/
  3. ©2020 Andrew Polaine These are discarded bikeshare bikes – the

    physical consequences of “digital” disruption. Image source & ©: https://www.wired.com/story/photo-of-the-week-a-dizzying-view-of-a-bicycle-graveyard-in-china/
  4. Photo by Charles on Unsplash No interface works without an

    ecosystem and few “products” are standalone these days. ©2020 Andrew Polaine It’s not complicated. It’s complex. Designing for complexity means designing for the detail and the big picture simultaneously.
  5. ©2020 Andrew Polaine Designing for exponentially nested ecosystems requires tackling

    complexity head on, zooming between layers. Political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal ecosystems Business ecosystems Multi-channel service Single touchpoint
  6. ©2020 Andrew Polaine If we fail to tackle complexity with

    complex thinking, we’re doomed to oversimplify and produce simplistic solutions that fail. “The complex is not complicated” pln.me/complex
  7. ©2020 Andrew Polaine Jacob Lund Fiskar “Nonlinearity is inherently much

    harder to deal with than linearity. In fact, a tremendous amount of effort goes into linearizing problems to make them understandable and solvable. The solution to the simplified problem is not necessarily the solution to the original problem. Furthermore, the simpler problem does not show the richness of solutions of the original problem.”
  8. ©2020 Andrew Polaine Money, borders, laws, markets, norms — all

    these things that feel so concrete and fixed were once designed. This means they can be re-designed.
  9. ©2020 Andrew Polaine Please explain? Yarra tram “tips.” “When you

    travel with myki on a tram you don't always need to touch off at the end of your journey. That's because you can now travel from one end of a tram route to the other on a Zone 1 fare. On three tram routes - 75, 86 and 109 - the ends of the line furthest from the city have a short Zone 2 section (which overlaps with Zone 1). If your tram trip is entirely in Zone 2 you must touch on and touch off to get the lower Zone 2 fare, otherwise there is no need to touch off on a tram.” Source: http://ptv.vic.gov.au/tickets/myki/touching-on-and-off/
  10. ©2020 Andrew Polaine Original budget $340m. $1.55B later… (2016) Source:

    https://sites.google.com/site/cheaperthanmyki/home (archive here) Space shuttle launch (2011) $426 million Mars Rover mission (2007) $777 million Value of London Stansted Airport (2012) $1.5 billion Total assets of Ford Motor Company, Australia (2011) $1.5 billion
  11. ©2020 Andrew Polaine How do you boil the ocean? One

    cup at a time Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash
  12. ©2020 Andrew Polaine Donella Meadows “A small shift in one

    thing can produce big changes in everything. “Growth has costs as well as benefits, and we typically don’t count the costs — among which are poverty and hunger, environmental destruction, etc. — the whole list of problems we are trying to solve with growth! What is needed is much slower growth, much different kinds of growth, and in some cases no growth or negative growth. “The world’s leaders are correctly fixated on economic growth as the answer to virtually all problems, but they’re pushing with all their might in the wrong direction.” Source: http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
  13. ©2020 Andrew Polaine Graphic: CC licensed by Toby Morris in

    collaboration with Siouxsie Wiles and published by The Spinoff
  14. Source: http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/ Places To Intervene In A System (in increasing

    order of effectiveness) 12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards). 11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows. 10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures). 9. The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change. 8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against. 7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops. 6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information). 5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints). 4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure. 3. The goals of the system. 2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises. 1. The power to transcend paradigms. —Donella Meadows ©2020 Andrew Polaine
  15. Jon Kolko’s Semantic Zoom ©2020 Andrew Polaine 0 Product -1

    oduct Line r Brand +1 Feature or Function +2 Control o UI Eleme Kolko, J. (2011). Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis. New York: Oxford University Press.
  16. ©2020 Andrew Polaine 0 Product -3 Global, World -2 Company

    or Marketplace -1 Product Line or Brand +1 Feature or Function +2 Control or UI Element +3 Attribute or Detail Figure 7.19 Display of all seven of the concept map zoom levels. Jon Kolko’s Semantic Zoom Kolko, J. (2011). Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis. New York: Oxford University Press.
  17. ©2020 Andrew Polaine Activity 1.In your breakout rooms and in

    MURAL, explore your assigned zoom level. 2.Sticky note everything you can think of at that level. Be careful, it’s easy to slip into a higher or lower zoom level. 3.Afterwards, we’ll all take a look at how much (or little) complexity we’ve explored. 5 minutes