Design and intervention approaches
Practical frameworks for working with systems, not against them.
Knowing how systems work is one thing. Knowing how to work with them is another.
These are the practical approaches: probe-sense-respond when you’re in complex territory. Minimum viable interventions when you want to learn fast. Participatory mapping when you need the people inside the system to see the system they’re in. Safe-to-fail experiments when the cost of getting it wrong is too high to bet big.
None of these are recipes. They’re stances - ways of approaching a system that respect its complexity rather than pretending it’s simpler than it is. The common thread: start small, stay curious, adjust as you learn.
8 concepts
Holding Space
Creating conditions for emergence rather than controlling outcomes - leadership as environment design
Minimum Viable Intervention
The smallest change that could shift the system - start small, learn fast
Participatory Systems Mapping
Building system maps with the people who live in the system, not just the people who study it
Portfolio of Experiments
Running multiple small interventions simultaneously to increase the chance of finding what works
Probe-Sense-Respond
The strategy for complex situations - try something small, see what happens, then decide what to do next
Sense-Analyse-Respond
The strategy for complicated situations - gather data, analyse it, then act on what the experts find
Systemic Design
Combining systems thinking with design practice - understanding the system before designing the intervention
Transition Management
A governance approach for guiding large-scale system transitions over long timeframes