# Resources
Updated Nov 14, 2019
Below Iâm collecting a set of resources dealing with a variety of topics for shareable referenceâa sort of living, semi-public annotated bibliography. Many of these readings should be accessible via a library or a good Internet search, but if you find something here that shouldnât be this easy to download, feel free to contact me and Iâll remove it. Or, if you come across any broken links, please let me know!
# Getting Started with Systemic Innovation
Riddell & Moore’s Scaling Out, Scaling Up, Scaling Deep (2015)
Kudoz’ Where Are You Scaling? Placemat (2017)
Kudozâ
Where Are You Scaling? âplacematâ is an explorable tool to help think through what scaling really means in a given venture. It builds upon
Riddell & Mooreâs (2015) Scaling Out, Scaling Up, and Scaling Deep in expanding our notion of scaling. When you hear the word âscaleâ in a conventional conversation, the meaning is likely synonymous with scaling out: reaching more people (stakeholders or customers) with the product, service, program, or policy at the heart of the conversation. Yet there are other underappreciated aspects of scaling: some are required in order to successfully scale out, while others are different ways of achieving impactâmaybe scaling out isnât the best route to take after all! Scaling up, for instance, refers to reaching higher in power hierarchies in order to implement higher-level solutions to the problem youâre addressing. Scaling deep means to reach the same people youâre already reaching more deeply, or with greater impact. Kudoz introduces two more concepts: scaling infrastructure, or building out more tools and supports to make the work more effective and sustainable; and scaling scree, or lending support and legitimacy to other, different actors and initiatives addressing the same issues you are.
Mulgan & Leadbeaterâs Systemic Innovation (2013)
While the above concepts help make concrete the different ways an intervention might change a system,
Mulgan and Leadbeaterâs (2013) discussion paper on systemic innovation dives a bit deeper into theory. They link the practice of
systems thinking to approaches to innovation, providing a framework for âjoining upâ a set of innovations in order to achieve systemic change.
# Getting Started with Social Innovation
Mulgan’s Social Innovation: What It Is, Why It Matters, And How It Can Be Accelerated (2007)
Geoff Mulgan offers a comprehensive yet down-to-Earth guide to social innovation. The reading really helps communicate what the differences are between social innovation and conventional innovation with practical examples.
Phills Et Al.‘S Rediscovering Social Innovation (2008)
The Stanford Social Innovation Review has been one of the preeminent publishers on social innovation since its inception in the early 2000âs. In this review Phills et al. summarize a brief history on social innovation itself while paving a way forward in research and practice.
# Getting Started with Design
What is âdesignâ, really? Itâs easy to think that design is the layout of graphics or illustrationsâperhaps even making decisions about layouts, as in architecture. These disciplinesâgraphic design and architectureâcertainly leverage design, and many people employed in these industries are designers. Yet these disciplines do not fully capture what design is, thus we should not limit the understanding and application of design to these industries.
Kolko’s Sensemaking And Framing (2010)
The term design shares latin roots with designation. To design is therefore to mark; to frame. Framing means to view a given problem or system from different perspectives in order to deeply understand it and, in turn, to develop novel ways of doing something about it or with it. To become a better designer, you must get better at both analyzing and creating frames.
# Getting Started with Systems Thinking
Systems thinking is most useful when applied to complex, chronic issues: âwicked problemsâ that resist taming through conventional approaches. David Stroh, who wroteÂ
Systems Thinking for Social Change, argues that effective systems initiatives begin with a focusing question: a question that bounds the project (so that you donât spend forever debating about where the problem system really ends) and anchors your systems-understanding work in a framing that you can return to if you get lost. This is a question of the form âWhy, despite our best efforts and intentions, does [x] persist?â or ââŚhave we not reached our goal of [y]?ââwhere [x] and [y] are phenomena that remain unassailable through conventional initiatives.
Goodman, Kemeny & Roberts’ The Language Of Systems Thinking (2000)
The Language of Systems Thinking introduces the reader to reinforcing and balancing loops using simple examples.
Braun’s The Systems Archetypes (2002)
Systems archetypes extend the links and loops of basic systems thinking into more complicated structures â and in doing so, begin to share with the reader deeper insights into the counterintuitive behaviour of the systems we work with.
Donella Meadows’ Leverage Points: Places To Intervene In A System (1997)
With robust systemic models, we can begin to identify leverage points: key phenomena that have great potential for change throughout the system.Â
# Getting Started with Futures Thinking
Jim Dator’s What Futures Studies Is, And Is Not (1995)
What Futures Studies Is, and Is Not is a wonderful introductory and reader-friendly summary of futures thinking.
Choo’s The Art Of Scanning The Environment (1999)
Chun Wei Choo’s The Art of Scanning the Environment offers a walkthrough of scanning practices.
Bishop, Hines & Collins’ The Current State Of Scenario Development (2007)
The Current State of Scenario Development provides a comprehensive review of scenario development approaches and techniques.Â
# Deeper Reading: Organizational Change
Dubberly Et Al.‘S Notes On The Role Of Leadership & Language In Regenerating Organizations (2002)
Hugh Dubberly and a suite of colleagues provide an elegantâpoetic, evenâwalkthrough of how change happens to organizations through their language. They reframe an organization as a continuous set of conversations between people, in turn showing the power of changing the language those people use in order to change the nature of the organization itself.
Weick & Westley’s Organizational Learning: Affirming An Oxymoron (1999)
Karl Weick and Frances Westley attack the very idea of organizational learning by showing how âorganizingâ and âlearningâ are, in fact, opposing processes. To organize is to order; to learn is to disrupt. Success in organizational change is therefore rooted in a leaderâs ability to handle the tension between organizing and learning. Too much organizing and the organization will miss opportunity in changeâbut too much learning and the organization might not be stable enough to survive.
Gawde’s Learning From Systems Thinking (2017)
How can systems thinking help with changemaking in an organization? Writing for
People Matters, Sanjay Gawde provides a succinct argument and explanation linking systems approaches to organizational change.
