Systems Mapping 🗺️

Systems maps are mostly useful as process tools, much less so as visual artefacts for outsiders who did not engage in building them. If you’ve ever been part of the process of developing a system map, you will have experienced the difficult conversations and wonderful a-ha moments that come when divergent, opposing stakeholder views finally align o

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Leverage points for transformation — Analyzing the transition factors and the systemic challenges they give rise to enabled us to identify strategic leverage points, the next layer of insight on the map. Leverage points are the strategic areas where a capital intervention can have an outsized effect on system transformation, creating ripple effect

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Systemic challenges — The loops and patters that the interaction of these transition factors point you to are the systemic challenges. These are the places where the system is deeply “stuck”. They are deep-rooted, persistent and interconnected. They are critical for capital holders to address in order to support system transformation. And critical

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A brief backgrounder on transition mapping

In practical terms, this type of mapping — instead of representing the current state of the system, as most system maps do — highlights the underlying drivers and blockers of change of any system transition, enabling us to more effectively pinpoint the strategic intervention areas which can support that tra

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