Zooming In and Out Resources

Systemic Design Toolkit. This is a set of guidelines to support the application of design-thinking tools, particularly for the social sector. The Systemic Design Toolkit will help you co-create interventions to tackle organizational and societal complexity. Two tools, in particular, will be valuable in the process of zooming in and out: Value Propositions and Intervention Strategies. The Value Propositions tool asks you to list the future benefits of interventions to individuals, organizations, and society. The Intervention Strategies tool asks you to understand and explore where actors can intervene in the system. By exploring different possible types of intervention, you can make sure that the combination of interventions in the present will cover the big picture in the future. Reach out to the MaRS Solution Lab if you would like to know more about exploring the Systemic Design Toolkit.

Transition Design. Developed by Dr. Terry Irwin, transition design asks you to map complex systems and how they have transitioned over time, as well as how you can achieve a desirable long-term future. Its goal is to prompt you to challenge existing paradigms and imagine new ones for the future. If you would like to know more about transition design, we recommend the following article, Transition Design: A proposal for a new area of design, practice, study and research. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17547075.2015.1051829?casa_token=Ixhb0iLIYaQAAAAA%3ANfeR1zk7mfG2eoulFIhcJN8GrqssTDuwiD9Sdzh1cpJtoDdxQzbXQ7SxLb-0sbpZ05hl588aTaBvRbI& (Article is behind a paywall. Other resource linked in the title.)

Causal-loop diagrams. Casual-loop diagrams can help you understand the interrelations between events or phenomena by zooming in and out. This is a primer on how to create causal-loop diagrams.