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Systemic evaluation is the developmental evaluation (Guijt et al., 2012) of systemic change.
Techniques for systemic evaluation combine conventional principles and tools of developmental evaluation with concepts from systemic design. These techniques provide changemakers with the ability to assess the accuracy and completeness of their theories of systemic change and action (Murphy & Jones, 2020). They also allow evaluators to examine the progress of systemic strategies (Murphy et al., 2021).
We seek leverage to find the best ways of making change.
Leverage points are places in systems where a little effort yields a big effect (Meadows, 1997). They are also ideas that help us grab on to strategic ways forward when we’re working in complexity (Klein & Wolf, 1998).
Acting on leverage points may accelerate systemic change towards progress and reform, but acting on the wrong ones may instead accelerate systemic change towards regression and deformity. Well-designed leverage strategies may be catalyzing or even transformative, but poorly designed ones may merely be futile (figure 1).
One way of finding leverage points is to think through your system with reference to Meadows’s (1997) 12 types:
Table 1. Twelve types of leverage points, in order of increasing power (adapted from Meadows, 1997).
| Twelve types of leverage points, in order of increasing power | Example |
|---|---|
| 12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards) | Wages, interest rates |
| 11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows. | Current levels of debt/assets |
| 10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures) | An individual’s financial structure (e.g., fixed costs and incomes) |
| 9. The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change | How long it takes to find a higher-paying job |
| 8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against | Rising costs of living vs. fixed income |
| 7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops | Recession causing reducing spending |
| 6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to what kinds of information) | How aware you are of impending recession/future rising costs |
| 5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints) | Who suffers as a result of poorly-managed recessions |
| 4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure | Central banks, Ministries of Finance |
| 3. The goals of the system | GDP Growth |
| 2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the systemâits goals, structure, rules, delays, parametersâarises | Growth above all |
| 1. The power to transcend paradigms | Sustainable development, flourishing |
Another approach, which may be complementary to the above, is to model the system as a causal loop diagram (e.g., Kim, 1992) and then to conduct leverage analysis (Murphy & Jones, 2020) on the model.
An understanding of leverage in a system allows us to generate systemic strategies (Murphy & Jones, 2020). These strategies can also be adapted into Theories of Systemic Change (Murphy & Jones, 2020).
Donella Meadows (1997) popularized the idea of leverage in systemic change with her essay “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in Complex Systems.” She proposed a typology of phenomena in a system, suggesting that acting on certain types of phenomena are higher-leverage than others.
In an article published in the Contexts journal of systemic design, I challenged Meadows’s (1997) paradigm, proposing a few other possible ways of viewing leverage. My aim was to link the search for leverage directly to the design of powerful strategies for systemic change, and to propose a few ways forward in advancing our understanding of leverage in complex systems.
My article “Leverage for Systemic Change” was recently published in the inaugural edition of Contexts, from the Systemic Design Association.
The article ultimately proposes a few key directions for a research agenda on leverage in systemic design (see the table below).
Table 1. A research agenda for leverage theory in systemic design
Research area Research questions Existing research Possible studies Possible contributions Dimensions of leverage - Is Meadows’s (1997) typology complete? - What other features of the “physics” of systemic change might matter?- A systematic literature review (Okoli & Schabram, 2010) of leverage points, especially using forward citations (Haddaway et al., 2022) from (Meadows, 1997) - Understanding the nature of leverage and other mechanisms of change potential in systemic change Methods for leverage - What methodologies are best to identify and select leverage points? - What kinds of evidence will help validate leverage?- How might systemic designers design theories of change (Gregor & Jones, 2007) for leverage theories?- How might systemic designers limit indeterminism (Lukyanenko & Parsons, 2020) in leverage theories?- Meadows’s (1997) typology’s order of effectiveness - Leverage analysis [Murphy & Jones, 2020]- Assessing potential for change (Birney, 2021)- Surveying practitioners in systemic design on how they identify, assess, and address leverage points to identify common habits and best practices - How to identify phenomena useful for leverage - How to evaluate and compare possible leverage points in the analysis phase- How to evaluate the effectiveness of chosen leverage points with evidence gathered from implementationsStrategy with leverage - How is leverage best used in developing strategic plans for systemic change? - How are leverage-based strategies best presented and communicated?- How are leverage-based strategies best evaluated and measured?- “Systemic change labs” tracing and comparing the impact of interventions using different kinds of leverage Execution on leverage - What are the best ways to target different kinds of leverage for systemic change? (E.g., how might we help actors in a system track all of the relevant paradigms?) - Fruitful friction as a tactic for transcending paradigms (Buckenmayer et al., 2021) - Systemic change happens via multiple dimensions of change (Mulder et al., 2022)- Design Journeys offers several chapters on taking action after identifying leverage points (Jones & Ael, 2022)- “Systemic change labs” tracing and comparing the impact of interventions using different kinds of leverage - How to design innovations for each type of leverage
Some other key takeaways:
The company, called Make Sunsets, conducted the field tests without prior notice or consent from the Mexican government.
This is one of the scary consequences of democratizing technology: volatility. It is getting easier for small teams to take big actions without oversight.
And this is a well-intended initiative. The opposite of this would be ecological or environmental terrorism against businesses or governments perceived to be direct contributors to climate change, which surely will happen as climate change advances and people get desperate.
At least this test was small:
Iseman says he launched two balloons in Baja California last year, each carrying less than 10 grams of sulfur dioxide. Thatâs a tiny amount of the compound thatâs typically released into the air by fossil fuel power plants and volcanoes in much larger quantities â so the release isnât likely to have had much impact.
The business model is interesting:
Founded in October 2022, Make Sunsets started with the grandiose vision of releasing enough sulfur dioxide to offset global warming from all the worldâs CO2 emissions annually. Itâs already selling âcooling creditsâ for the service at $10 per gram of sulfur dioxide â even though it has yet to achieve any measurable impact and canât guarantee that releasing sulfur dioxide at a bigger scale wouldnât trigger any unintended problems.
This has obvious parallels with Climeworks, who was recently paid by a few big tech companies to pull carbon from the atmosphere. It is hard to imagine this business model working at scale, though… surely there is a kind of prisoner’s dilemma at play that will keep every company from chipping in. Perhaps we need regulators to require businesses to purchase credits like these to properly recognize the environmental costs of business.
A presentation from Peter Jones and I at RSD9, virtually in Ahmedabad, India.
