Transcript SD in Practice - a Systems Perspective on Change

Systems Thinking
in sustainability, projects and communication
Sustainable Development: Project Management & Communication
September 10, 2013
Systems Thinking
Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things
influence one another within a whole. (Wikipedia)
Systems thinking is a way of understanding reality that
emphasizes the relationships among a system's parts, rather
than the parts themselves. (Pegasus Communications)
Intuition & Analysis
Right brain & Left brain
Complexity & Simplicity
Structure & Behavior
Aim
Using systems thinking to manage and
communicate projects that contribute to a
sustainable development
Aim - rephrased
Causing organized whole bodies to appear to
oneself, in order to handle, and make
common, something thrown forth that
contributes to a bearable unfolding.
Exercise: Paper Tear
Sustainable Sweden?
Dialogue
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Listen more than you talk
Speak with Intention
Listen with Attention
Speak from Experience
Listen to yourself
Build on each others ideas
Around the campfire
Ways of explaining reality
Ways of explaining reality
Ways of explaining reality
Events
Patterns, Trends
Systemic Structures
Mental Models
What just happened?
What’s been happening?
Have we been here or some place similar before?
What are the forces at play contributing to
these patterns?
What about our thinking allows this situation
to persist?
Ways of explaining
reality
Drought
Events
Declining
Water Table
Patterns, Trends
B3
Water from Pumping
+
Systemic Structures
-
Water
Demand
+
Irrigated
+
Lands
-
External Water
Resources
B1
B4
+
Expand if
Water Available
+
+
Natural
Vegetation
+
Water from
Divertions
Divertions
+
Water Supply Unit Cost
-
B6
Salinization of +
Aquifers
Water Supply Expectations
Drive Irrigation Development
+
+
Piezometric
Levels
Seawater
Intrusion
Costs Escalation
Expected
Profitability
Dams
+
+
B2
R6
B5
Water from
Reservoirs
+
Expand if
Land Available
+
+
-
Water in Local
Aquifers
Surface Water
Availability
+
Profitability
+ from Irrigated
Lands
Available Area
for New
Irrigated Lands
Mental Models
Pumping
Water
Excess/Shortage +
+
Planned Increase
of Water Resources
Pressure for
more Water
Mental Models – Patterns of Thought
”Without changing our patterns of
thought, we will not be able to solve the
problems we created with our patterns of
thought”
Albert Einstein
”Our
life is what our thoughts make it”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
ISIS
Ways of explaining
reality
Drought
Events
Declining
Water Table
Patterns, Trends
B3
Water from Pumping
+
Systemic Structures
-
Water
Demand
+
Irrigated
+
Lands
-
External Water
Resources
B1
B4
+
Expand if
Water Available
+
+
Natural
Vegetation
+
Water from
Divertions
Divertions
+
Water Supply Unit Cost
-
B6
Salinization of +
Aquifers
Water Supply Expectations
Drive Irrigation Development
+
+
Piezometric
Levels
Seawater
Intrusion
Costs Escalation
Expected
Profitability
Dams
+
+
B2
R6
B5
Water from
Reservoirs
+
Expand if
Land Available
+
+
-
Water in Local
Aquifers
Surface Water
Availability
+
Profitability
+ from Irrigated
Lands
Available Area
for New
Irrigated Lands
Mental Models
Pumping
Water
Excess/Shortage +
+
Planned Increase
of Water Resources
Pressure for
more Water
System
a set of things – people, cells, molecules, or whatever –
interconnected in such a way that they produce their own
pattern or behavior over time. (Meadows, 2008)
a group of interacting, interrelated, and interdependent
components that form a complex and unified whole. (Pegasus
Communications)
an entity which maintains its existence through the mutual
interaction of its parts. (www.systems-thinking.org)
Systems
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Sweden
Uppsala
Uppsala University
The Geosciences building
CEMUS
Sustainable Development: Project
management and Communication
• You
The Sustainability Compass
Systems (S)
•Sources, Stocks, Sinks and flows
•Feedback
•Delay
•Non-linear effects
•Thresholds
•Positive and negative casual relationships
Cause and Effect
Typical approach
then B
If A
Systems approach
C
B
D
A
Positive and negative causation?
If A goes up, then B goes up
If A goes down then B goes down
If A goes up, then B goes down
If A goes down, then B goes up
Exercise: Living Loops
Casual Loop Diagrams
A causal loop diagram (CLD) is a
diagram that helps you visualize and
understand how the different key parts
and elements in a complex system
interact.
Causal Loop Diagram
Causal refers to cause-and-effect relationship
Loop refers to closed chain of cause and effect
Conceptual modell on a village &
landscape scale
Drought Duration
and Intensity
Advancing
Desert
Local Rainfall
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Environmental
Degradation +
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R5
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Forestry officers
interventions
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Tree Removal
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Tree Density
Fodder in
fields
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Local Decision
and
Enforcement
Capacity
Tree Planting and
Cultivation
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+
Crop
Planting
Success
+
Farmers' Sense of Crisis
( Potential for Behavior
Shift)
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B2b
B2a
Local
Livestock
Access
Distant
Resources
Livestock
visiting
Farmers'
Fields
B2c
+
+
Foraging
Time
-
B2d
ET
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-
-
Wind Speed
B1
B4b
Conflicts
Herders/Farmers
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+
+
Herder
Livestock
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+
-
Fuelwood
Availability
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B4c
B4a
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Potential for Non-Farm
Income Generation
+
+
Farmers'
Livestock
B2e
Fuelwood
Sales
Herder
Monitoring
Time
Soil Fertility +
Soil
Moisture
+
Household
Subsistence
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+
Crop Yield
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+
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+
B3b
+
Family Food
Production
B3a
Food
Export
Food
purchases
+
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Household
Income
Sahel Reforestation Process
1975
2003
Drawing casual loop diagrams
Draw a causal loop diagram (CLD) that portrays
how your chosen indicators interact in a
systematic way. Start with the indicators you
have and add indicators that you think are
important for the dynamics of the system.
LEVERAGE POINTS
Places within a complex system where a small
shift in one thing can produce big changes in
everything. Points of power.
Identified leverage points
depend on
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What system we are looking at
How we are looking at it
How we have conceptualized it
Our mental models
And they are often counter-intuitive (J.W.
Forrester)
Places to intervene in a system
12.
11.
10.
9.
8.
7.
Constants, parameters, numbers
Sizes of the buffers and other stabilizing
stocks, relative to their flows
The structure of material stocks and flows
The length of delays, relative to the rate of
system change
The strength of negative feedback loops,
relative to the impacts they are trying to
correct against
The gain around driving positive feedback loops
Places to intervene in a system
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
The structure of information flows (who does and who
does not have access to what kinds of information).
The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments,
constraints)
The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize
system structure
The goals of the system
The mindset or paradigm out of which the system –it’s
goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters – arises
The power to transcend paradigms
LEVERAGE POINTS
Try to classify the levarage points that you have
found by using Dana Meadows categories
CLOSING WORDS