In Systems Thinking in Practice, we tend to refer to the ‘object’ of our inquiries as ‘situations’. There are variations on this term such as problematic situations, situations of interest or situations of concern which I have discussed in previous … Continue reading
When I studied the OU systems thinking modules, TU811 and TU812 (in that order), I remember getting a little agitated that TU811 used the term ‘situation of interest’ and then TU812 used the term ‘situation of concern’. I did try … Continue reading
Please note: if you are studying TU811 the contents of this blog should not be favoured above a detailed reading of the module material and assessment information and advice from your tutor. The OU module TU811 Thinking strategically: systems tools … Continue reading
(Activity 2.1) It is interesting that Ray Ison* uses the introduction of a IT ‘solution’ as his example of a sticky situation. So far, my fellow students have also used IT examples. Is it really that IT introductions fail more … Continue reading
This blog is prompted by a conversation I was in the other day with other Open University Applied Systems Thinking in Practice colleagues. The conversation triggered three related but not yet integrated streams of thought – just want to get … Continue reading
Recently I wrote a post on Situations which ended as follows: But, in spite of all the commonalities, there is a distinction in the way that TU811 treats situations of interest compared to the way TU812 treats situations of concern… … Continue reading
A few weeks ago, the co-occurrence of a ‘twitter discussion’ (initiated by @LukeCraven) and some reading I was doing on policy analysis tools prompted me to start thinking about what Hill (2013) refers to as process advocacy. Process advocacy is concerned with … Continue reading
I’ve finally got round to reading a book I have had for a while – the second edition of Beryl Ralin’s book ‘Beyond Machiavelli’. The first 2000 edition is subtitled ‘Policy analysis comes of age’ and the second 2013 edition … Continue reading
Just recently I’ve read a couple of articles. They are both about the development of thinking in an educational context. One is about developing critical thinking (Moon, 2005) and the other is about the teaching of systems concepts and therefore … Continue reading
In public health, the notion of behaviour change has been around for a while. The focus stems from the desire to reduce or eliminate ‘health risk behaviours’ like smoking or alcohol or to introduce ‘health enhancing behaviours’ like physical activity … Continue reading