Design Thinking vs Systems Thinking

It's not one OR the other. It's both. AND.

Design is how we manifest empathy - specifically, the new Low Touch Economy (a subset of Experience Economy) requires/demands Extreme Empathy; we all know to practise empathy is to listen with our eyes, seeing things 'differently' opens up new possibilities/solutions - but mostly predicted on simplicity/ease/elegance. There's a lot on design thinking and it's successful applications of late (last decade) - I'm especially fortunate to have been apart of some these in non-profits and government agencies in Singapore. More commercial examples include brands like IKEA using DT for product development and showroom experience - other's Ive done include auto, telco, branch/banking retail/sales -> wealth experience (after the iconic success of the Apple Stores a decade ago) . There are plenty. 

DT and other methods like Jobs Theory/JTBD popularised by Clay Christensen became prime time bcos of it married a designers’ creative problem-solving lens and blended it with a structured innovation approach (see jtbd for Outcome Driven Innovation -> Futureback) by providing an empathy framework/bunch of tools in the quest for (more) human-centered solutions. The 'lesser' known benefit - but ironically the one more visible - was de-risking failure through (rapid) prototyping. 

Ah, but that's also the crux of the problem observed through years of practise - the lack of continuity after prototyping. What comes next after prototyping? Much fanfare, the spate of innovation lab/crawls in the past years (now doing even more brisk business volume with the endemic/pandemic); executives are 'wowed' (or sometimes required to be seen as 'wowing') with low to high-fidelity prototype resolutions, 'amazed' how internal teams 'missed' out on such simplicity & elegance, breaking down siloes etc etc. But, alas usually BAU happens! You read that right. 

The innovative initiatives fizzle out one by one; the reality bites hard - most of these ideas are being powered (just a skin over) legacy systems and processes in silos. The teams that came for the fanfare/innovation workshops may not have been trained in design approaches, and that's a drag coefficient for implementation - probably the most well known culprit. But hang on, the same folks who came together to 'wow' the executives either genuinely believed the drag coefficient to be surmountable, or kept it under wraps believing the longevity of the (management's) design 'craze' would blow over (just like it did last year, quarter, etc). 

This is quite a bummer - the lack of continuity and integration inside the organisation’s system, and not placing the solution with the right system to manage change. This brings me back to the 'downtrodden' part of the health/fitness program aka Experience Management that necessitates the close gap between ideas and execution > into close gap of experience improvement opportunities > operated within the right system that is healthy for innovation.

What about Systems Thinking?

By definition it is the approach (probably more 'downstream' beyond design thinking) to understand, design, systemise the flow of value from various aspects of the organisation across the value chain to ensure synchronicity, consistency, integration, and maximisation between people, activities, processes, policies, places and resources. Immediately sounds more practical to me as a practitioner to solve for the latter bits i.e. the lack of continuity in design thinking. I heard people x process x technology (and that's home ground for me :) Bottom line, systems thinking is possibly easier to understand and is expressed through macros, the big-picture and detailed visualisation.

Here's are some quick visuals - (1). what the System Thinker's toolkit and (2) the Systems Thinker: Kinda summarises

This is the clincher- it's Design and Systems Thinking not Design vs Systems Thinking. Design thinking is kinda more 'bottom-up' with a human-centered approach - inclusive, sometimes pointed - while Systems thinking takes more of a 'top-down' macro view to manage change and integration, org design etc. Systems thinking approach complements with design thinking, instead of replacing it altogether.

So what's inside the 'system' - after all it's called Systems Thinking innit? We have loads e.g. partnerships/ecosystems(no man's an island), business activities/lots of processes, love 'em processes, resources, cost structure, revenue model, pricing, finance, marketing, branding, sales, operations, metrics, innovation strategy; these latter few components/entities would really irate you practitioners of DT out there -the thickness of the siloes! Using DT, we sometimes superfluously, 'forget' and assume these are explicit assumptions - we always say 'assume blue skies', 'no idea is a bad idea' etc etc - well then, these are some of the missing (or 'missed out') components inside an organisation system that are not overlooked in a systems thinking approach.

Systems thinking can be applied both internally within the org (but lately more) externally across the ecosystem. I'd say it's almost mandatory to prioritise the ecosystem in today's Experience/Low Touch Economic climate. Basically, all these 'missed out' components/entities must be considered when implementing new solutions generated from the outcome of design thinking - not just left as a column labeled 'assumptions', 'parking lot' or blue skies. Designing systems - or the design of systems, is necessary to enable the conditions for a culture of innovation - as underpinned by the Experience Management framework (oh not another framework!) and operating model. The major impact Systems Thinking has if you ask me , is In fact, the ecosystem - beyonds the walls/borders/confines of the org itself --- especially during endemic conditions, the impacts to external stakeholders, environment ESG, regulations is exponentially compounded (and intricate) -- and how these all work together to achieve a vision of a better system than the existing.

Consider how some successful practitioners have adopted systems thinking -- not the 'pretty face' in front (usually called front of house transformation) but +how its org is designed and operated - we tried to expand this idea in what we call the Journey-led Org (JLO) here. Think about a retail e.g. modern bank branch/telco experience store -how high value transactions are handled, as part of the Omnichannel/seamlessness/frictionless journey. Yes, it's about a transformation of hearts, new ways of working/agile/scrum to reimagine the experience -- but systems thinking adds that much more implementability/deliverability/veracity that allows for the accrual of the projected value proposition, and business case (economics) - when rubber meets road. There's a lot that's happening in the 'messy' middle, the front and back ends, connecting all the dots powering the front-end experience with back-end operations, and humming towards the envisioned operating model.. easier said than done.

Meet me in the middle (here) - in another article I explore basically how Architects vs Engineers/builders should meet 'halfway' - both needs to know 'enough' about the job desc/responsibility of the other to collaborate effectively, and that's tablestakes today. E.g. the Experience Architect has to do 'more' than the Experience Designer; the role of a designer is typically perceived (not limited!) only to designing visual aesthetics, utility products, service experiences etc. Likewise the Engineer, devops, builders need to empathise the design principles, simplicity ease etc, that has be practically possible, commercially feasiblle in the first place! The true potential - upstream and downstream - in my words, with less attenuation - is to design solutions (primarily systems in DX) with multidisciplinary teams. I explore this in yet another article here.