In my field of work, consulting enterprise organizations on IT and more, I am constantly confronted with systems thinking and design thinking. Both concepts are immensely powerful in understanding and solving problems.
However, a lot of my workshop participants do not know the difference between design thinking and systems thinking, nor do they know the benefits of the two approaches:
Design thinking focuses on solving problems with the human at the center, such as how to catch more fish as a fisherman. Whereas systems design is focusing on understanding and solving complex and important problems such as the massive reduction of fish in a fisherman’s area due to climate change.
This is a simple and straightforward way of differentiating the two concepts. There are a lot more elements to consider when differentiating design thinking and systems thinking.
I have laid out the most important parts for design thinking and systems thinking down below, as well as how each approach can potentially aid you in solving complex problems.
Design Thinking vs. Systems Thinking – Breaking down the Difference
Systems thinking and design thinking are two different mindset and processes focusing on solving and understanding problems.
However, the problems each method is focusing on to solve, can be distinguished by how big the problem is in terms of scale and the number of options/solutions to solve a problem.
Design thinking focuses on problems which are not yet specific enough or problems which are simply not discovered yet, meaning people do not even know that there is a problem.
Whereas systems thinking is looking at complex problems and systems, with a bigger scale, have a history of occurring, and are usually urgent.
A system is a number of elements which are linked or connected to each other in a dynamic way. For systems thinking the relationships between these elements are usually much less tangible but are yet in many cases more important to understand, than the elements of a system itself.
Systems thinking is interested in understanding the relationships and how one part of a system affects or is impacted by other moving elements in this system.
Systems thinking and design thinking are also different when it comes to the created solutions.
Design thinking is trying to come up with a number of ideas for a specific problem by using various design thinking techniques such as brainstorming, prototyping and, generally speaking uses techniques which forces the design thinking practitioner to look at a problem from different perspectives.
Whereas systems thinking is focusing on providing a set of options to a complex problem, also using a number of techniques which aim to understand the elements of a system and the relationship between these elements.
However, systems thinking practitioners have understood that there are no perfect solutions for a complex problem at scale because there will always be drawbacks due to the impact of other systems.
For example, solving the problem of having less Covid-19 new infections per day by forcing people to quarantine will result in impacting other systems such as the economy, since people are for example not able to work.
Systems thinking would examine these relationships and tries to take out the complexity of a system to be able to make informed decisions.
In short, design thinking focuses on defining and uncovering problems which can have a number of solutions whereas systems thinking tries to reduce the complexity of a complex system so informed decisions can be taken to solve a problem in the best way possible.
The table below hopefully makes the difference between design thinking and systems thinking easier to grasp.
| Design Thinking | Systems Thinking | |
| Outcome | Many creative ideas based on specific human needs and issues, leading to a concrete solution to a problem. | Systems thinking provides a better view of an entire system by considering different perspectives, resulting in one or more options to solve a complex problem. |
| When to use it | Design thinking works best when you need to uncover problems which are badly defined or when you want to shine light on problems you haven’t even known existed. | Apply systems thinking when you want to understand and find solutions to a complex, non-linear, recuring and problem where scale matters. |
| How to use it | Design thinking incorporates hundreds of different techniques such as various brainstorming techniques, prototyping exercises, stakeholder mapping practices and much more. | Systems thinking has tools such as systems mapping, causality analysis, feedback loops and much more. |
| Example | Design thinking would look at the problem of a fisherman who is trying to improve their fishing process by focusing on his specific needs and his problems, by coming up various ideas using design thinking techniques, resulting in one or a more solutions. These are then prototyped and tested until the best solution for a specific problem has been found. | Systems thinking looks at the bigger picture around the fishermen. It would look at what’s causing the reduction of the fish, such as overfishing by big corporations or the temperature increase of our environment and how all of these are connected to the core problem. Which would result in a few solutions to a problem of which none of the solutions might be the perfect solution since the solution could impact and change other systems. |
This was a breakdown of the difference between design thinking and systems thinking. But there are many more facets to understand to make the best use for either concept, I’ve laid it out down below.
Understanding Design Thinking
Design thinking is a mind-set which follows a process and includes design thinking techniques focusing on putting the human in the center of a problem, when designing concrete solutions.
The concept exists because designers have a more creative way of thinking about problems. They are used to looking at ill-defined deeper gaps in the experience of a person.
Which helps them understand a problem from various perspectives such as the emotional side of how a person feels when encountering a problem.
In a business context, design thinking practitioners are focusing on finding solutions that are solving problems which at the same time should drive businesses value.
To solve a problem, the approach of design thinking is to first come up with many different ideas to solve a problem by analyzing the challenge/problem through different perspectives.
This requires patience and long-term commitment from designers, but also from the organization itself and their leaders.
The reason is that the process of finding a solution using design thinking consists of five steps which are each encouraged to be undertaken.
The team at interaction-design has created a helpful illustration and an immensely in-depth article about design thinking:
To give you an example of how design thinking works in practice let’s look at the example of a product, which I’m sure you’re all familiar with or have at least seen in some tv commercials: Swiffer.
Swiffer is the cleaning solution from Procter & Gamble (P&G) and has been created following a designer’s approach of problem solving.
The designers back then actually went into people’s homes and watched how people cleaned their floors.
In doing so these designers asked many questions to understand the fundamental problem of cleaning floors. Which step is particularly frustrating and how are people actually cleaning their floors.
Turns out that the most annoying parts where the messiness and the time it took to sweep, but also how frustratingly time consuming it was to get the water, make the floor wet, and then drain the mob just to repeat the process again with fresh water.
By taking the time to dig deep into this problem with a designer’s perspective and then prototyping several different solutions.
P&G managed to produce the Swiffer solution which combined sweeping and mopping while at the same time, eliminating the need for water.
This example shows that design-thinking is great in finding one concrete solution to a problem.
However, it would reach its limitations when it comes to understanding complexity at scale and making sense of the bigger picture of a problem.
This is where systems thinking would come into play.
Understanding Systems Thinking
The mindset and method of systems thinking as opposed to design thinking, is to produce a range of choices to solve a complex problem by broadening our way of thinking to consider relationships and the impact one action has between the different elements inside a system.
Before we go deeper let me quickly describe what system is as this is crucial to understand systems thinking as a whole.
A system has several components which are required for it to be called a system:
- A system is a set of elements, which are connected or linked to each other.
- Every system has a purpose or serves a function. This is even more important than the systems elements or relationships because it defines the concrete behavior of what the system is doing.
- Systems are ordered but at the same time chaotic in a way that is not easy to predict what the system will do.
- A system responds to forces from the outside in different and complex ways.
So, for example, a system can be a forest, a government, the galaxy, our planet, or simply a human being.
A human consists of different elements such as our organs, which relate to each other (e.g. our heart is pumping blood to our brain so the brain functions).
The purpose of the human body is to exist, and it will react if our body is exposed to something outside of our system (e.g. bacteria, alcohol, or drugs).
I mean if you drank too much alcohol then you might get a nasty hangover, which is your body’s reaction towards outside forces impacting your system.
Our body is also structured (e.g. the placement of our organs) but also chaotic, if you look at how abnormalities can occur such as cancer and other illnesses.
Systems thinking is therefore focusing on understanding complex systems with a focus on a systems purpose and its relationships to elements within the system or how a system is reacting to other systems.
So for example, if you adopt a systems thinking approach to understand what choices you have as a government head to reduce the number Covid-19 infections in his or her country (in this scenario consider the country as a system).
A systems thinking practitioner would approach the challenge by considering the current situation, making sense and simplifying the complexity, considering the massive scale and the impact of this pandemic on the country but also on other parts such as other countries.
The practitioner would try to understand what impact certain restrictions and rules might have on the economy, or the mental health of people and many more elements inside the system (the country).
In understanding what rules and which restrictions impact other elements in the country such as the people living in the country, the general economy and such, will lead to a number of solutions to this problem.
None of these solutions will be ideal since all of them will impact different elements of a system in a non-beneficial way.
This means that systems thinking is simply trying to provide an idea what will happen when choosing a specific solution.
So, if the government head decides to force every person in their country to self-quarantine for a period of time to reduce the infection rates, then this will impact people’s lives in some way.
But it’s not just people per se, companies, the environment (less travel –> less pollution), tourism and so many more elements within this complex system (aka a country) will be somehow affected.
The job of a systems thinker is to understand these relations to “predict” how a system might react.
How to use Systems Thinking and Design Thinking together
In conclusion, systems thinking, and design thinking are quite different.
Design thinking looks at an unclear or currently undiscovered problem and uses creative ways to find a solution with the human being in mind.
Whereas systems thinking tries to understand a complex and scaled system, by considering the different elements of a system, the relationship between these different elements, and the purpose of the system per se, to provide a set of options on how the system might react to different solutions to a problem.
To maximize the value of both design thinking and systems thinking consider combining them in your problem-solving venture.
If you use systems thinking to understand the entire system first, the concrete elements, its relations and the purpose, you will have an idea on what could happen if you introduce something to this systems, such as a new application for your workers.
If you now pair it up with a design thinking mindset to drill down and really understand the problems of the elements in a system for example.
And then later on in the process use design thinking techniques to produce dozens of ways to solve said problems then this could help you in implementing your products or whichever you’re trying to achieve in an incredibly effective and efficient way, because you have considered a number of different perspectives.
