Foundations | about 35 minutes | free
Construct and challenge two systems-of-interest descriptions without confusing your model with the situation.
A first rehearsal of boundaries, relationships, perspectives, feedback and emergence. It is not a complete treatment of systems philosophy or complexity science.
This is original learning material, not a reproduced official course. Mechanical checks have determinate answers within the stated case. Worked comparisons for open judgements show defensible reasoning, not the only possible model. Specialist pedagogical review is not recorded.
Fictional case: Riverbank Library has a computer-booking service. Staff count a booking as successful when a slot is allocated. In one week 80 slots are allocated, 30 are not used, and 20 visitors leave without completing the online application they came to make. The booking form is online. A community group helps people who cannot use it; this work is absent from the library's statistics. Managers propose reducing staff assistance to allocate more slots. Staff predict that visitors will return repeatedly for help. Neither prediction has yet been tested.
Use paper, your own drawing tool or the notes below. Attempt each step before opening its comparison. Describe a diagram in words when that is more accessible.
Produce: A titled containment map with one stated purpose and boundary.
One defensible title is 'Allocating computer slots'. Within its boundary place the booking process, slot records and allocation staff; put visitors, the community group and application websites in the environment. Containment means inclusion, not causation or seniority. This boundary can be useful for allocation work, but it excludes whether a visitor completes an application. Explain that exclusion rather than pretending the map covers the whole situation.
Produce: A second boundary and a short explanation of what changed.
A visitor may define the activity as 'Getting an application completed'. Include access to equipment, assistance, credentials, information and the application process. The library is now one contributor, not the centre of the universe. Include the community group's work. Different maps need not be merged into one allegedly objective map: their purposes differ.
Produce: One closed causal sentence and one observation that could challenge it.
Less assistance may increase incomplete applications, which may increase repeat visits, which may consume assistance time and further reduce available assistance. This is a proposed reinforcing loop, not a fact established by the numbers. Compare repeat visits and assistance time before and during a small reversible change. A fall in repeats despite reduced assistance would challenge the proposed mechanism.
Produce: A two-sentence observer note.
For example: 'I selected completed applications as important because I am taking the visitor's purpose seriously. My questions and reporting may make staff prioritise that measure, so I will ask who loses access or becomes invisible under this new boundary.' Naming the observer does not make every account equally adequate; each still needs evidence and a stated use.
These checks test the supplied case, not your overall competence. Open answers and model variants still need your judgement.
The map places every organisation in one circle labelled 'the whole system' and claims that everyone shares the library's success measure.
Give the map a purpose, author, boundary and date. Distinguish an allocation perspective from an application-completion perspective. Record disagreement and missing information. 'Whole' is a claim to examine, not a label that removes the boundary problem.
A new manager counts only applications completed on library computers. What exclusion could this introduce, and how would you test it?
People who complete applications later at home or with the community group disappear from the outcome measure. So may people prevented from attending. Ask a sample of visitors about later completion and contact the community group with permission. Do not solve the exclusion merely by broadening a diagram without changing how evidence is collected.
A different model can be defensible when its purpose, assumptions and reasoning are explicit. A contradiction, incorrect unit, invented fact or unacknowledged change of purpose needs repair. Keep both your first attempt and revision.
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The complete original case above is free. Links below distinguish exercises from explanations, recordings, software and paid study. Reading a page or drawing in a tool is not itself a model check.
Attempt SAQ 3 before opening its answer. Draw your own map for Activities 19-22, then compare the author's choices. Different justified boundaries need not match the example.
Tasks, defective maps, answer text and worked revisions inspected. Historic Child Support Agency case, not current policy guidance.
Check containment and boundaries. An OU systems map is not a causal-loop diagram; do not add untyped causal arrows to it.
Updated 2021 tutorial page and diagram conventions inspected; playback not independently tested.
Use the text conventions and printable activities. Use the newer systems-map tutorial below instead of the Flash element.
Course content inspected. An old Flash activity is unavailable; do not depend on it.
Choose the named introduction or core module matching your method. Check current price, access arrangements and feedback provision before paying.
Public listings inspected for VSM, SSM, CSH, SD, Patterns of Strategy, Mosaic and systems laws. Paid exercises and marking were not accessed.
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