Provide a summary explaining Tom Wujec - Systems Thinking & Complex Problems. Story is below

Systems Thinking. Systems thinking is something that we talk about in design, and is also one of the key mantras behind the work that Engineers Without Borders does. The talk is by Tom Wujec, and is called Got a wicked problem? First tell me how to make toast. I love this talk because it discusses a problem that many designers think about on a daily basis, but in a way that anyone can understand. Th experiment started when he first asked people to make a drawing of the toast process. He received hundreds of different drawings from many different people. Some were good quality, some were bad. Some had tons of steps, others only had a few. Although they all had similarities, no two were exactly the same. Some of the terms below might seem complicated and make your eyes start to glaze over, but theyre actually very simple. Nodes are tangible objects in systems (like the toaster, a person, a piece of bread) and links are simply connections between the nodes. In the making a piece of toast example, there are on average 4 to 8 nodes (take bread out of bag, put bread in toaster, press down on lever, etc.). Studies have found that more than 13 nodes makes the system too complex to be easily understood, and less than 5 nodes is too simplistic (with 5 to 13 nodes being the sweet spot). Breaking a system down into steps or pieces is something that people intuitively know how to do, even if theyve never thought about it before. For most people, it is easier to do the exercise on post-its or small pieces of paper so that they can be rearranged afterwards (which allows much richer drawings and more complex systems). As any good designer knows, when making a model of a product or system, you must allow the person testing the model to understand that it is not perfect. If people see a perfect model they dont want to damage it or say bad things about it, out of politeness. But an ugly model made of straws and tape makes anybody feel confident that they may be able to suggest an improvement or alternate configuration.

The ease with which we can change a representation correlates to our willingness improve the model

After doing this exercise by yourself, the next step is to try it again in a group. Although this might sound counter intuitive (wont it get all messy and confusing?), its actually an important step of the process. Designers learn that often something needs to get messier and messier before it becomes a clear idea, since people build on top of the ideas of others and thrive on the diversity of different ideas. Groups working in silence actually do it better, and more quickly, and still add lots of great new layers of complexity to create a better idea of what the system is really about. People without an arts background might be skeptical at first and be afraid to draw in front of others. But drawing actually helps us to understand, and this could be a good exercise to try at your next board meeting.

Wicked problems were an idea I first heard of a few years ago during my graduate degree (studying Interdisciplinary Design at Carleton University). During my first year seminar, this was the main topic how do we solve wicked problems? Well, first of all, what exactly is a wicked problem? Basically, most of the major social issues we face today are wicked. This means they are very complex, and difficult to solve. You cannot solve an issue like climate change by simply recycling, it involves actors from many different spheres (citizens, companies, governments, etc.) and in many different fields (manufacturing, public policy, farming, transportation, etc.). There is no single solution that is easy and will fix everything. However, Tom believes that you can understand these complex systems by using these techniques. Once you understand the system, it might actually be possible to start thinking about how it can be changed to solve a problem, even a wicked one!