Applied Systems thinking for social management issues

The words social and issues together create a vivid image, of much havoc and indecisive hold ups. The planet is engulfed with several social systems trapped in a never-ending loop of mess and uncertainty.  The efforts to alleviate the suffering get more attention than the underlying reasons that lead to it. Stakeholders and witnesses associated with the system are for most part affected and confused, leaving little place, time as well energy for intervention. With such a complex scenario, the current state of our social system issues is obvious.

A general observation reveals most of the theory being generated to address these issues is academic or media related. While the intervention side providing monetary, emotional and physical support has very little to do with these generated theories of statistical data or sympathetic broadcast. There seems to be a great void in the organizations that can help understand and suggest feasible solutions.  Thereby, creating a vicious loophole of cause and effects with sustainable activism struggling to make an impression.  A medium to generate feasible models, to conceptualize the situation and develop alternatives will reduce the equation of chaos.  Whether this medium of application arises from within existing institutions or as separate third party organization is irrelevant.

What is crucial is how we apply systems thinking to reach valuable conclusions. Such applications are new in the sphere of social systems and given the redundancy and huge energy consumption of such efforts, divulging into an applied systems thinking framework is worth a try.

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Engineering solutions for Social Systems

What good is funding in the 21^st century? Social service, humanitarian work, public good, aid, relief, support add to it a dash of NGOs. Resting upon the threshold of donations and funds, the immediate as well as long term projects are usually if not always taken care by non profits.  That is how it has always been, claimed one graduate student during a 2 day conference on The State of the Youth in Toronto early in November. Corporate Social responsibility can never be given a genuine benefit of doubt for corporate organisations always have ulterior motives. While there was some truth to that, it was hard to let the reality set in. A large part of social and humanitarian work is done under the banner of being a non profit. That is the state of the world dynamics one would argue.  In my mind I questioned, why does it have to be like that?

Only when we challenge ourselves to think beyond the existing structures and mental models, are we truly capable of innovating and progressing. If analog was the only way of life, and we sat there assuming it to be, digital would never see daylight, nor would our mobile technology or high tech computing. Why then do we have to completely rely on existing methods and be critical towards the non standard social applications?  A method that cuts across corporate and donation based organisations does exist.

Engineering social systems through strategic management and design thinking will bring about a new flavor to this sector. Simply put, organisations that are grown out of the need to renew social systems have a brighter future than their existing counterparts.  There is a dire urgency to develop effective business models in this direction. We have been dealing with the same social systems for beyond a century. Our application mediums are being redesigned yet the source has always been the same, funding agencies.

While there is much good is this form of public service, there is a vision to actively propagate an unparalleled methodology waiting to touch the face of humanity. Design thinking for social systems brings in forces of empathy with creativity and rational. What better way than this to logically work towards social system and humanitarian issues. 

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Design Thinking rooting for Engineering principles

Design Thinking has a deep correlation towards Systems Thinking. The concept of design thinking lays much emphasis on the design of existing problems. In an iterative manner, which is for most part user centric, a mindset for innovation is created. The strength of this process relies mainly on diversity and the powerful creativity that comes with it. For a given problem, two rationales are evaluated. A convergent and a divergent mindset differing mainly in the way solutions are generated and applied. Interestingly, over the last decade Design Thinking has found its application mainly in product development and sales. This was because until recently, these fields highly emphasized the need for customer satisfaction. However, with a stark rise in social innovation it has become clear that there is a greater need for customer centric development in vast spheres of management and engineering.

We have to step out of the traditional approach of creating solutions and engage more consumers of the technology to get a reflection of what truly is the problem. As Steve Jobs once said, “It is not the customers’ job to know what they want”. Indeed, creating technologically pioneering solutions and feasible engineering systems requires a lot more than the problem statement and resource availability. It is time we introduce design thinking as an empathic component into the design process and not just a technical aspect.

Image Courtesy: http://www.pdagroup.net/

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Airport Systems

There is always a degree of fascination surrounding the services offered at an Airport. The discipline in the uniforms and the chaos of the moving crowd, together result in quite a complex system. Yet, each entity functions periodically following quite the standard norm with varying levels of amplitude depending on time of the year. What is more intriguing is the constant inter phase between familiar and unfamiliar. With a million customers zooming in and out, the likelihood of coming across the same entities is least likely. That neither dampens the zeal nor ability to give them the best service possible.

When dealing with such complex systems, customer service is one essential aspect. The strategic planning and management is another dimension which, as zooming customers, we rarely pay attention towards. Think of your childhood fascination traveling. The pilot, the stewards and stewardess, the people who stamp our passports and take away our luggage, and those really lucky staff in fluorescent coats who roam around in mini cars between the large airplane parking lots. That was all the people we knew about and for some that is all we still know of.

By exploring the field of systems thinking, one gets to gradually realize the several subsystems working towards being one large system of success. As customers, we see this success in terms of quality of service and management. The lack of it as dissatisfaction and failure. However, view this system from a different lens. Perhaps as an engineer, a business development manager, a strategic planning associate. You see the depth in its working, the dimensions, the risks and the phenomenal juggling of several domains. In all beauty one sees the actual work behind the scenes. No time for rehearsals, touch ups and script proofreading. Every part is  being played as and when by working abilities, technical knowledge, soft skills and efficient planning. Airports are well defined systems to study and learn from.

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