This document outlines the schedule and activities for Term 2 Weeks 1 and 2 of a course. It includes recapping and introducing complex systems analysis. Students are asked to complete a project recap checklist, identify personal risks to managing their work, and do surveys and interviews. Rich picture mapping exercises are described as a way to represent problems holistically using nodes, links, boundaries, and perspectives. Students map out the system of making toast and identify potential interventions. Comparing individual and composite rich pictures can incorporate different experiences and perspectives.

1. Term 2 Week 1 & 2
TOAST
Making sense of mess
Recap and refresh
Introduction to complex systems analysis

2. By Jelle Vandebeeck - originally posted to Flickr as [1], CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5674814
“You have control”: learning to take control of your learning as a co-pilot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y19dxd82XCg

3. Journal D:Project recap checklist
1. Where are we headed- what is the ‘deliverable’?
2. How will we know we have delivered it well?
3. What can we remember?
4. What have we forgotten?
5. What tools do we have at our disposal?
6. What have we achieved so far?
7. What have we still left to do?
8. What time and resources are left?
• What 10 things will prevent us succeeding?
• What are we going to do about them?

4. Journal D:My personal
mess managementRisk
• Bad time management
• Social media
• Paid work
• Diet and food
• Low motivation -not taking control
• Other course commitments
• Games and free time
• Friends & social life & Relationships
• Commuting & travel
• Drugs & alcohol
• Mental health & crisis
• Physical health
• Other uni commitments/sports
• Too much sleep
• Technology failure
• Family commitments
• Not attending lectures & not submitting
• Trying to catch up
• Failing to ask for help in time
• Not making time for yourself
What I will do to prevent the risk
IN TUTORIAL:
GET SURVEYS AND INTERVIEWS DONE!!!!
mha@Northampton.ac.uk

5. 5
An unknown problem
situation has arrived……..

6. What is this problem?
• What are its origins?
• What are its causes?
• What are its features?
• What are its parts?
• What parts make it up?
• What are its effects on us?
6

7. 7
UNKNOWN PROBLEM SITUATION
“student food poverty”
What are its implications?
How do we control and limit this “messy problem”? (Ackoff, 1981)
Can I ignore it?Do I have to
deal with this?
{Somebody
Else’s Problem
field}
{cognitive
blind spot}
“Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.”

8. 8
An unstructured problem, a mess

9. Make me a plane
9

10. 10
Can you see what it is yet?
A structured problem

11. making sense of messy data

14. In 5 mins draw a pictorial representation of
the making of toast in your house

15. Systems analysis components
• Nodes
• Objects
• People
• Experiences
• Links
• Flows
• Feedback
• Communication
These are the
components of the
drawings you have
made
• Boundaries
• Physical
• Mental/cognitive
• Perspectives
• Ways of seeing
• Culture
Typically 6-13 nodes are
drawn in the first
attempt, regardless of
how complex the
problem
The Art of the Rich Picture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiCL29e_szA

16. Now collaborate as a team
Map out the whole system of making toast
Where in this system map would you intervene to make the
process of making toast much better?

17. Rich pictures: a wholistic tool
• A thinking tool to make sure that all factors of a problem are being
considered
• Ensuring different perspectives and experiences are being captured
• Helps people collaborate as a team
• Creates a model of the real world
• Whole- whole system
• Holon- single units of analysis

18. Rich picturing as perspective taking
• Draw your own rich picture of a problem situation
• Get a group of people (experiencing the problem) to draw their
versions of the same problem situation
• Compare and contrast their perspectives
• Negotiate a composite rich picture
• Develop a ‘future perfect’ version

19. Food poverty is a dysfunction in the system of
food…
• Rich picture of your own experience of food system at university
• Represent own experience
• Add in literature knowledge
• Add in survey data
• Add in interview data
• Add in observational data
• Compare with that of others in class
• Create a composite that represents a wholistic picture

20. Here are the rich pictures of the
system of toast making that
each class created

21. Systems
Rich picture of
the making of
toast #1

22. Systems
Rich picture of
the making of
toast #2

23. Systems
Rich picture of
the making of
toast #3

24. Systems
Rich picture of
the making of
toast #4

25. Systems
Rich picture of
the making of
toast #5

26. Systems
Rich picture of
the making of
toast #6