Today’s innovation processes are not equipped to deal with increasingly complex global problems. Most innovation currently takes place within organizational silos, being driven by technology and user needs. The next wave of global innovation, driven by sustainability and artificial intelligence, will demand entirely new ways of thinking.
In her keynote address at the latest Ivey Innovation Learning Lab, Kristel van Ael introduced the field of ‘systemic design’, which merges systems thinking and design thinking methodologies to achieve positive social change. Kristel’s systemic design toolkit aims to enable ‘systems innovation’, a model of innovation which drives systems-level change through collaboration between citizens, government, business, and academia. By adding systems thinking capabilities to design techniques, innovators can create value for both their organizations and society as whole.
By merging these two disciplines, systemic design allows innovators to zoom in on individual parts of a system, while zooming out to examine relationships within the system. Systemic design aims to avoid the unintended consequences of siloed design by integrating beyond organizational boundaries and considering societal effects. By creating interdependent innovations at a system-level, innovators can realize full value in all dimensions: economic, ecological, social, and psychological.
Kristel’s systemic design toolkit allows all actors within a system to co-create solutions. The first part of systemic design focuses on understanding the present conditions of the system. This involves defining system boundaries, conducting extensive interviews with all actors in the system, and creating a map of their relationships. The second part of systemic design focuses on defining an ideal future, exploring and designing strategic intervention points, and creating a roadmap to enable this change. By exploring these techniques, organizations can gain visibility into the broader dynamics that influence both their organizational success and the well-being of society.
Today’s organizations are waking up to the realities of global climate change, pandemic outbreaks, social and civil unrest, and other threats. The most innovative organizations will be those that recognize the interdependence of organizational and social value. Kristel’s systemic design methods provide organizations with the tools they need to realize this change, and create a better world in the process.
