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Aug 21 2009, 5:24 AM EDT (current) chachabooth 10 words added
Aug 21 2009, 5:09 AM EDT chachabooth 69 words added, 6 words deleted

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Systems thinking has been extensively used in organisational development - especially in the business domain - in recent years. Its basic premise is that systems - that are everywhere - can only be understood through exploring the interactions among its parts. Systems thinking highlights the world's complexity and rejects the idea of linear cause and effect relationships. This makes it highly relevant for creating understanding about conflict. Systems thinking is also action-oriented and sees its purpose in identifying leverage points for change. Systems thinking is like a new language and therefore this section will start with an introduction to systems thinking, describing key tools such as causal loop and stock and flow diagrams, before asking how the discipline should be applied to conflict analysis.

Use, change or add a content:
Use, change or add an activity:
  • What is systems thinking? This lecture quotes a number of definitions from the field and highlights important characteristics of systems thinking.
  • What is a system? Systems are everywhere around us, they are made up of the interactions of their parts. Find out more in this lecture.
  • Systems thinking tools.
Systems thinking uses a number of tools in order to undertstand how systems work. Here, the most important are introduced and more references are given.

  • Just a glass of water. This activity introduces participants to key ideas of systems thinking through a simple experiment.
  • Angry, not without reason. This activity evolves around a role play. Participants are asked to draw behavior over time graphs as well as a causal loop. Ideally, this activitiy should be used after "The vicios cycle of discrimination" and "The facilitator's walking behaviour over time".
  • Why things escalate. This activity introduces systems archetypes and deals more specifically with the escalation archetypes.
  • Power of the purse. This activity applies stocks and flows first to an everyday example and then to conflict.