Learning Systems
Thinking

Resources for crafting nonlinear approaches.

Deliver Impactful Change

Over the last 40 years, we’ve built a vast landscape of software. Software manages seemingly-infinite digital interactions. Our phone is a pocketbook full of software. Software structures infrastructure for software.

Relational complexity is running riot. Our linear approaches – rational, top down, procedural, predictable and concerned with control – are holding us back. To design systems, we need to think and act differently.

  • Give well-reasoned and trustworthy recommendations. 
  • Learn how systems thinking and nonlinear approaches help you navigate complexity. 
  • Uncover the ways that linear thinking is limiting your perspective
  • See the iceberg ahead and navigate past them.
  • Practice changing your mind.
  • Lead initiatives as software scales to systems of software.

Recent Editions

  • Learning to Respond: Start with Why

    Start with Why: Start with why to avoid erroneous leaps in logic and recommend matterful technology change.

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  • Learning to Respond: Logical Fallacies

    Logical fallacies: As knowledge workers, we rely on reasoning to recommend an action and build things. A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning.

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  • Learning to Respond: Noticing our Reactions

    Noticing our reactions: Learning to respond is an essential systems-thinking skill. It begins with noticing our reactions.

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  • Upcoming Events & Experiences

    There’s a lot happening in 2023! Here are some events, experiences and books to enjoy.

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  • Making Time for Thinking

    Power and control can be nice to have but what we need most is … time to think.

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  • Redesigning Digital Information

    Information designed to fit software logic must now be restructured to serve emergent consumer logic.

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Upcoming Events

From Software to Systems

Key patterns and principles that maintain cohesion, communication and conceptual integrity as software scales to systems of software.

Better Ways (Greece)

September 29, 2023

Tools for Systems Thinking

A workshop with Dawn Ahukanna exploring divergent toolsets and processes for systems thinking.

KanDDDinksy (Berlin)

October 4 – 6, 2023

Modern Agility

Read an introductory essay describing how the Agile mindset is integral to architecting modern systems.

Agile Meets Architecture (Berlin)

October 5-6, 2023

Systems Thinking

A hands-on workshop exploring essential thinking skills for architecting modern systems.

Global Software Architecture Summit (Barcelona)

October 9, 10 & 11, 2023

A Critical Skillset for Modern Knowledge Workers

Read the early release. Print edition will be published in April 2024.

This book shows technology professionals how systems thinking can guide you through the emerging complexity of modern systems. It presents a vision of technology architecture that transforms how we learn, communicate, and collaborate with others. You’ll learn how to develop critical self-reflection and decision-making skills amid complexity and uncertainty—and lead impactful cultural change within your organization.

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