Managing complexity: A systems approach – introduction
The Open University via OpenLearn
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Overview
Do you need to change the way you think when faced with a complex situation? This free course, Managing complexity: A systems approach introduction, examines how systemic thinking and practice enables you to cope with the connections between things, events and ideas. By taking a broader perspective complexity becomes manageable and it is easier to accept that gaps in knowledge can be acceptable.
Syllabus
- Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 Overview of the unit
- 1 Overview of the unit
- 2 Part 1 Starting the unit
- 2 Part 1 Starting the unit
- 3 Part 1: 1 Thinking about expectations
- 3 Part 1: 1 Thinking about expectations
- 3.1 What are you hoping to learn?
- 3.2 Learning by experience
- 4 Part 1: 2 Preparing to tackle this unit
- 4 Part 1: 2 Preparing to tackle this unit
- 4.1 Something different
- 2.2 The nature of systems thinking and systems practice
- 2.3 Taking responsibility for your own learning
- 2.4 Appreciating epistemological issues
- 2.5 Review
- Given up already?
- Part 2 Experiencing complexity
- Part 2: 1 Introduction
- 6 Part 2: 2 Immersing yourself in complexity
- 6 Part 2: 2 Immersing yourself in complexity
- 7 Part 2: 3 Representing your experience of complexity
- 7 Part 2: 3 Representing your experience of complexity
- 7.1 Introduction
- 7.2 Complexity and rich pictures
- 7.2.1 Trap 1: representing the problem and not the situation
- 7.2.2 Trap 2: the impoverished rich picture
- 7.2.3 Trap 3: interpretation, structure, and analysis
- 7.2.4 Trap 4: words and wordiness
- 7.2.5 Trap 5: the final version trap
- 7.3 Getting out of traps
- 7.4 Complexity from someone else's perspective
- 7.5 Summary
- 8 Part 2: 4 Being inside complexity
- 8 Part 2: 4 Being inside complexity
- 8.1 Loose ends
- 8.2 Stakeholder traps
- 9 Part 2: 5 Exploring complexity
- 9 Part 2: 5 Exploring complexity
- 9.1 Making sense of complexity
- 9.2 Systems maps: searching for system
- 9.3 Systems maps: Drawing systems maps
- 9.4 Influence diagrams
- 9.5 Multiple-cause diagrams
- 9.6 Sign graphs
- 9.7 Control-model diagrams
- 9.8 Diagramming a complex situation
- 9.9 Perspectives review
- 10 Part 2: 6 Review
- 10 Part 2: 6 Review
- 11 Part 3 Understanding systems approaches to managing complexity
- 11 Part 3 Understanding systems approaches to managing complexity
- 11.1 Part 3: 1 Introduction
- 1.1 Making sense of the metaphor
- Part 3: 2 Systems practice – unpacking the juggler metaphor
- 13 Part 3: 3 Being a systems practitioner
- 13 Part 3: 3 Being a systems practitioner
- 3.1 The state of ‘Being’
- 3.2 Being aware of the constraints and possibilities of the observer
- 3.3 Appreciating your basis for understanding
- 3.4 Experience – making distinctions based on a tradition and constructing a history
- 3.5 Distinctions about systems practice
- 3.6 Learning and effective action
- 3.7 Being ethical
- 3.8 Reviewing some implications for systems practice
- 14 Part 3: 4 Engaging with complexity
- 14 Part 3: 4 Engaging with complexity
- 4.1 Articulating your appreciation of complexity
- 4.2 Articulating your appreciation of complexity
- 4.3 Experiencing complexity as mess or difficulty
- 4.4 Where is the complexity and what is it?
- 4.5 Choosing to distinguish between complex situations and complex systems
- 4.6 Appreciating some implications for practice
- 15 Part 3: 5 Contextualising systems approaches
- 15 Part 3: 5 Contextualising systems approaches
- 5.1 Introduction
- 5.2 What are systems approaches?
- 5.3 Purposeful and purposive behaviour
- 5.4 Methodology, method, technique, and tools
- 5.5 Experiences that motivated the development of systems methods
- 5.6 Developing the Open University hard systems method
- 5.7 Developing a VS method through the viable systems model and Viplan
- 5.8 Developing a soft systems method
- 5.9 Developing other systems methods
- Open University systems failures method
- Systems dynamics
- Critical systems thinking
- 5.10 Contextualising any particular systems approach
- 16 Part 3: 6 Managing complexity
- 16 Part 3: 6 Managing complexity
- 6.1 Perspectives on managing
- 6.2 Modes of managing systemically
- 6.3 Clarifying purposefulness
- 16.4 Managing for emergence and self-organisation
- 16.5 Where does the systems practitioner stand in relation to a system of interest?
- 6.6 Reviewing the juggler through the understandascope
- 17 Part 4 Making sense of your experiences of complexity
- 17.1 Part 4: 1 Revising your understanding
- References
- Acknowledgements