Systems Thinking
- 2. INTRO TO SYSTEMS THINKING Intro to Systems Thinking 2
- 3. What is a system? A system is an interconnected set of components that are logically grouped to meet a common need or perform a common action. 3
- 4. Systemic metaphors Brad Frost uses an atomic approach. Another metaphor is the human body. Yes this classification method is derived from science and the biological disciplines. 4
- 5. Why system thinking? As companies mature they all find themselves in this pivotal point where they cannot sustain the demands of deliverables while delivering a high quality of work. Systems thinking and systems driven design removes the pain of engineering and design teams by locking up and systemizing common elements or elements that have similar relationships across its products. This preserves a high quality while allowing for the same rate delivery, and in some cases can increase the rate of delivery. 5
- 6. System thinking in action EXAMPLE Company B has long delivered designs and products quickly and effectively, however, this has resulted in 5 variations of a payment flow. As one company, the expectation is consistency across all products. Having one single payment flow would have given the teams more time to focus on other projects and other work instead of double, triple, or quintuple work. SOLUTION Company B will now revisit the payment flow and design a global solution that can be scaled across the entire company’s ecosystem of products. METHOD Identify common components. Design each component so they work everywhere, in all cases. Document cases where these experiences cannot be consistent. Gain buy in from all teams to build one single experience. Spec the global experience. Call out areas where branding, styles, and tone can be implemented. Spec those cases. Document and revise as needed. 6
- 7. What about design thinking? Design thinking is important, however, it comes after a system is established. Design thinking is solving problem with a human centered approach towards innovation that satisfies a user need and is validated from a business perspective. Before we can get there, we need a system in place. Human driven problem solving.Solutions framework System thinking Design thinking 7
- 8. 8 How we will use systems Sign in Create an account Error Cases SSO as a standalone component SSO in a system - Onboarding SSO Subscription Setup main hardware Register hardware }
- 9. 9 Where will we document this? We will host a documentation site that has an HTML version of all of our specs, including global specs. Global specs are the system level Components we have identified.
- 10. HOW SYSTEMS THINKING WILL BENEFIT US How systems thinking will benefit us 10
- 11. The benefits • A single source of truth • Easy new hire onboarding • An organized way of designing • Building one thing once and reducing redundancy • Bringing in consistency • A way to govern our designs 11
- 12. How do you think it can benefit us? Discuss how this can help? What issues do you see with this? 12
- 13. Objective reality 13 This is hard, it will be painful, but it is worth it.
- 14. TOOLS What tools can we use? 14
- 15. Tools 15 To help us system think, we need the right tools and resources. What are they? 1) Affinitization 2) Taxonomy
- 16. What is affinitization 16 A tool that gathers large amounts of language data (ideas, opinions, issues) and organizes them into groupings based on their natural relationships.
- 17. When should we affinitize? 17 • When we need to sift through large amounts of data • When we are thinking about patterns • When we need to quickly organize components and systems • Brainstorming ideas
- 18. Affinitization process 18 Step 1 - Generate ideas Step 2 - Display ideas Step 3 - Sort ideas into groups Step 4 - Create header cards Step 5 - Draw finished diagram
- 19. What is taxonomy? 19 Taxonomy is the science of defining and naming groups of components on the basis of shared characteristics.
- 20. How can we taxonomize? 20 • Information Architecture • Content inventory • Card sorts
- 21. Taxonomy types 21 • Flat • Hierarchical • Network
- 22. RESOURCES List of cool resources for system thinking 22
- 23. Who to follow 23 Abby Covert (taxonomy and IA) http://abbytheia.com https://twitter.com/Abby_the_IA Brad Frost (atomic design) http://atomicdesign.bradfrost.com https://twitter.com/brad_frost Sarah Drasner https://sarahdrasnerdesign.com https://twitter.com/sarah_edo Alberta Soranzo https://twitter.com/albertatrebla Andreas Resmini https://twitter.com/resmini http://andrearesmini.com