SDGC24: You can’t control complex systems; you are part of them

The 2024 Service Design Global Conference held in Helsinki centred on designing for impact, with a strong focus on achieving practical, forward-looking results through service design. In this article series, we cover inspiring takeaways discovered throughout the week.

Don’t forget to read part 1 on the importance of accessible design, and part 2 about designers as the drivers of sustainability.

Service designers understand that when designing systems for people, human agency adds layers of complexity. Complexity science, which studies the unpredictable interactions within ecosystems or networks, offers valuable insights for creating conditions that lead to desired outcomes.

Unlike complicated systems that are predictable and require technical expertise, complex systems are inherently unpredictable; small changes within these systems can lead to significant, sometimes unexpected impacts. In our final article, we explore Jennifer Briselli’s thoughts on embracing the complexity.

Jennifer Briselli: If you can’t tame it, embrace it: complexity science for service designers

Jen Briselli is a strategist, service designer, researcher, and educator who helps people realise the transformative potential of risky play, complexity informed strategy, and transdisciplinary collaboration. In her talk, Jennifer explained that complexity science can be seen as an advanced form of systems thinking, though it's more abstract and harder to grasp. 

Essentially, complexity science is about studying how different parts – whether they are organisms, networks, or ecosystems – interact with each other in ways that lead to unpredictable, self-organising, and emerging outcomes.

In this field, it's important to examine entities from multiple perspectives, like physics, philosophy, biology, or some other window, depending on what best fits the situation.

Jennifer notes that, although her background is in physics, you don't need specific expertise in these fields to work with complexity science. What matters most is finding the right flight altitude: you don't want to go too high-level but also want to avoid getting stuck in excessive detail. The goal should be to get in between those two extremes.

Different types of systems

Jennifer presented a framework by Dave Snowden, which includes four types of systems in two categories. Complexity science focuses on unordered systems that are not predictable.

Ordered Systems - predictable and linear

• Clear Systems, easy to understand, e.g. baking a cake 

• Complicated Systems, e.g. designing a space rocket

Unordered systems - cause & effect are not linear

• Complex Systems, e.g.  driving in traffic, raising a pet

• Chaotic Systems, e.g. extinguishing a burning building

Jennifer highlights that complicated and complex should be clearly distinguished from each other. Complicated systems are linear, ordered, and predictable but require expertise to navigate and design. 

Complex Systems, on the other hand, have distinct properties that arise from relationships, such as nonlinearity. Effects don't always match the size of their causes; small forces on a system can cause unpredictably large changes, or vice versa.

Who can benefit from complexity science?

Jennifer recommends that complexity science is relevant for everyone working in complex service environments, product ecosystems, decentralised organisations, or rich information environments - like Service Designers. Studying the behaviour of complex adaptive systems, especially complex human systems, helps us create the conditions for desirable things to merge, even when cause and effect are not linear or understandable. 

She strongly reminds us that we can't predict or control (or design) complex systems. We can work with a system's affordance & constraints. This means that we can only adjust some parts of the system and see what it does and how it affects the bigger things. If I had to summarise Jennifer's talk to one key takeaway, it would be this:

Forget linear descriptions. You don't design systems; you are part of them. You are not in traffic; you are traffic. We are part of the system that we are designing for.

From complicated to complex – Nitor helps you to succeed

In certain cases, simplifying produces mediocre results – certain things are meant to be complex. 

Most of the systems we work with as designers at Nitor definitely pass the threshold of being complicated. However, with the increasing number of AI and data-driven services, the systems we work on have shifted form and are increasingly complex.

This means we have had to learn to embrace uncertainty and equip ourselves with tools to navigate ever-changing design spaces where modifications must be done with great care and thought.

To put it simply – we don’t get startled when the roadmap changes, but are ready to tackle the new shape of the challenge.

By working closely together with our clients, we assist in carving out new strategies and systematic reviews of product outcomes. Because as the complexity of technological systems rises, so does the level of risks. 

Some of the outcomes in these systems might be unexpected and even unwanted, which requires tools and skill sets to identify and mitigate undesirable results.

Of course, we can’t predict the future, but we can help you to succeed to the best of our ability.    

Are you looking for help in managing complexity? Read more about our design services!