Understanding Systems: a twelve-module reading guide

Module 1

Form a learning group

Systems, designing, and visualisation; conversations for action and group commitments.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: What will your group be able to notice together that each member might miss?

Module 2

Make inquiry inspectable

Assumptions, inquiry, Object-Process Methodology, and tools for intelligence augmentation.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Choose a diagram: which assertions are observations, and which are assumptions?

Module 3

Design from a desired situation

Idealised design, socio-technical systems, and socio-ecological questions.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Separate what you would design now from constraints you assume cannot change.

Module 4

Explore feedback

Causal loop diagrams, archetypes, and distinctions between qualitative and quantitative modelling.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Choose a loop: what observation could change its sign, delay, or boundary?

Module 5

Read a situation through several accounts

Rich pictures and Soft Systems Methodology.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Draw two accounts of the same situation and locate the disagreement about purpose.

Module 6

Make relationships visible

Synthesis maps, gigamapping, and systemic design.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Give every line a meaning. Which lines merely show your current uncertainty?

Module 7

Recognise recurring traps

Double binds, schismogenesis, wicked problems, polycrisis, and viable organisation.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Could obeying one demand make another demand impossible to meet?

Module 8

Work with changing regimes

Ecological complexity, panarchy, and anticipation.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Compare persistence with transformation. Whose continuity would each protect?

Module 9

Examine boundaries and participation

Critical systems practice, boundary critique, systemic intervention, and dialogue.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Who can change the purpose, and who bears consequences without that authority?

Module 10

Learn across traditions

Systems Changes Learning, pacing, and Indigenous contributions.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: What responsibilities accompany borrowing a practice from another tradition?

Module 11

Review a synthesis, first round

Draft synthesis-map review and development.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Ask another group to interpret a relationship without your explanation.

Module 12

Review a synthesis, second round

Further synthesis-map review and development.

Read the corresponding source module

Editorial inquiry: Record what changed after criticism and what disagreement remains.

Read across the course

Keep a small record of an inquiry: the situation, your boundary, the people whose accounts differ, the relations you propose, and the observations that might change them. Revisit that record as the methods change. This is an editorial exercise; it is not a claimed course assessment.

The source’s final section is a placeholder, so this guide adds no final-assessment requirements.