Designing at scale:
Practical Systems Thinking for Designers

As designers shift their focus to larger scale projects in what is increasingly becoming a networked, big data-driven world, design thinking is no longer the only approach that aids us in making sense of this newfound level of complexity. We’ll examine the resolutions at which established design methods are relevant, from foundational artifacts all the way to service design, and some newly adopted approaches derived from systems thinking that can change the way design strategists are able to facilitate problem solving at scale.

We’ll also quickly review the types of ecosystems relevant in experience design, the basics of facilitating a service ecosystem mapping workshop, and the process of identifying the key parts of the system that should be given priority for further downstream exploration. Unsurprisingly, understanding an organization’s ecosystem is not (just) about visualizing and diagraming it, but also about being able to detect and apply the right lenses in order to craft a representation that can evolve into a key sense making tool.