First lessons from system change school

One week into the School of System Change's six-month program and I'm already fired up to put everything I've learned into practice. If you're interested in what the program involves, I've written up my experience and my five biggest takeaways so far.

"It's easy to be beguiled by stable patterns. We need to look for roots of change."
— Jean Boulton (School of System Change)

Seemingly intractable (i.e. stable) social, economic and environmental challenges require a closer look at the underlying system dynamics, structures and conditions we hope to change. In the design field, we are seeing systems thinking and complexity theory wending its way into industry conversations and project briefs more and more. The public and private sectors are collectively realising the need to think in more structural, strategic ways to effect lasting change, moving away from the product-focused mindset of addressing only short-term needs by building another thing.

The RMIT Centre for Innovative Justice (CIJ) demonstrates this long-range, systems change view in their Enabling Justice program, which aims to improve the justice system's response to mental health and disability. (Paper Giant are fortunate to be a strategic design partner to the Enabling Justice program in 2019.)