Open Thinkering

TB871: Toast and wicked problems

• MSc Systems Thinking, TB871, boundary judgements, interrelationships, systems thinking, Tom Wujec

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category.

Tom Wujec has a TED Talk which focuses on systems thinking diagrams. The subject? Making toast. It doesn't take long to watch, and there's an accompanying website at drawtoast.com

Some of the key insights are around the importance of links and nodes, and also the ability to rearrange them, say by using cards or sticky notes. Wujec also comments on making systems models as a group, saying that we can handle more complexity because we talk things through, coming up with branches and ways to incorporate different perspectives on the fly.

From the course materials:

From my perspective, I consider the three STiP heuristic activities corresponding to Wujec’s explanation to be as follows:

(Open University, 2020)

Also, there's an element of joy in working visually and gaining a bigger picture. It can also be genuinely interesting to see how others view the world, and to try and combine multiple perspectives — hence my interest in systems thinking!

References