Design, test, and redesign interventions that benefit the whole
Beginning to see a system as a whole—by building relationships with diverse stakeholders and using systems tools—is an important step. But the insights that emerge from this process of discovery aren’t enough on their own. To make meaningful, lasting shifts, you and your partners need to work together to design and test interventions that benefit the whole.
According to sociologist Leyla Acaroglu, “An intervention is the act of intentionally seeking to shift the status quo of a scenario, situation, or system.” As you design any kind of intervention In a complex, dynamic system, you need to carefully take into account when, where, and how to act. By identifying areas of high leverage for change and anticipating potential unintended consequences, you can help maximize the positive and minimize the negative outcomes.
Because the stakes are high when working at a systems level, it’s important to design and test any interventions before rolling them out at a large scale. The goal of experimenting and prototyping is to learn what works, what doesn’t, and how the system responds. Then you adapt your plan according to the feedback you’ve received and test again.
The benefits of this kind of iterative process are many. You and your partners continually:
- Increase your understanding of the system
- Improve the quality and impact of your actions
- Develop your individual and collective capacity for change
- Boost the quality of your relationships, both within your group and with other stakeholders
Send us your recommendations for practices and tools.
Prototyping
Prototypes are tangible representations of proposed solutions that you can try out in the real world and then refine as needed. The goal is to “road test” your concept before you invest too much time and resources in polishing it. With an emphasis on learning, prototyping also provides a way to explore the dynamics of a product, process, or system. And it makes your thinking visible to stakeholders so they can respond with their own ideas and critiques.
Design Thinking: Get Started with Prototyping
Prototyping
Polarity Management or Both/And Thinking
Have you ever noticed how, over time, certain policies tend to go from one extreme to another? For example, an executive team may rely on centralized decision making but decide their company isn’t responsive enough to customer demands and put decision-making authority into the hands of people on the frontlines. Then, in a year or two, the leaders realize that the decisions being made are inconsistent, so they centralize decision making again. In a couple of years, the pendulum will likely swing back in the direction of localized authority. Polarity Management is a methodology for consciously embracing and balancing two diametrically opposed needs. It involves working to simultaneously avoid the disadvantages and maximize the advantages of both “poles.”