Summary
Enterprises are increasingly complex. Workers are faced with more information, more tools, more demands, and research needs to keep up. The field of Systems Thinking can help researchers uncover the models behind this complexity. This talk covers practical techniques for illuminating how models are interconnected, where feedback loops exist, and how we might transform these complex systems to drive innovation. It highlights how we can understand these systems without losing sight of the workers themselves… their ideas, concerns, motivations, and needs. Marrying systems clarity with this human perspective is critical, and is something researchers are uniquely positioned to do.
Key Insights
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Systems thinking helps researchers understand complex products by considering whole systems and interconnected subsystems simultaneously.
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Feedback loops in systems can be reinforcing or balancing, amplifying or stabilizing system behavior.
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Bounded rationality causes different user roles to make decisions with limited information, sometimes leading to negative downstream effects.
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Intangible elements like user emotions and confidence significantly impact system performance and should be included in research.
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Defining system boundaries is challenging but crucial; boundaries must include core elements and exclude peripheral ones, requiring iterative validation.
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System-level research provides the broad context and identifies subsystems and user roles to guide detailed follow-up research.
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Subsystem-level research dives into specific user tasks and uncovers connections with upstream and downstream parts of the system.
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Systems thinking reveals leverage points for product impact, such as enhancing data management tools to increase marketer confidence and innovation.
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Mental models and organizational beliefs affect collaboration between user groups, requiring shifts in mindset for product success.
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Abstraction through system diagrams helps manage complexity and facilitates conversations across diverse teams and stakeholders.
Notable Quotes
"Systems thinking can give us this new lens to think about research in the middle of complexity."
"A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something."
"If you dive too deep into the subsystems right away, your understanding of the whole will be lacking."
"People make decisions with limited information, which can result in unexpected impacts elsewhere in the system."
"The level of overwhelm a marketer feels when creating an audience profoundly affects how well that subsystem works."
"You drew the boundaries wrong, so we pivoted and re-drew the boundaries to focus on foundational features."
"For my product to be successful, I need data engineers and marketers to see that they mutually own the data."
"Drawing system diagrams makes it easier for everybody to talk about how the product is really going to be used."
"You really have to start asking yourself, is this a core part or a side effect of the system you’re researching?"
"Abstraction is key to balancing needed information without overwhelming users, like how Google Maps doesn’t show every blade of grass."
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