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Peter Jones

OCAD University, Faculty of Design, Faculty Member

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), EAAD - School of Architecture, Art and Design, Faculty Member

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(I see my CV & profile are from 2013! Time to update). I'm a first year Distinguished Professor in Tec de Monterrey's Faculty of Excellence, representing systemic design in the Design program, Mexico City campus. I continue as an associate professor at OCAD University Toronto, and teach in the MDes Design for Health program. My research interests include systemic design theory and method, cultural-historical foresight, healthcare service design, service system innovation, flourishing social ecosystems (strong sustainability), new learning media and scholarly publishing, and dialogic design as a collaborative foresight process. Publications can be found here, Research Gate and at https://designdialogues.com/
Supervisors: Aleco Christakis, Bonnie Nardi, and Alex Pattakos

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Papers by Peter Jones

Interpretive Collaborative Review: Enabling Multi-Perspectival Dialogues to Generate Collaborative Assignments of Relevance to Information Artefacts in a Dedicated Problem Domain

Elpub, 2008

ON MODELINGThe language/action model of conversation

Interactions, 2010

Editor's Note: In last year's January + February issue Usman Haque, Paul Pangaro, and I d... more Editor's Note: In last year's January + February issue Usman Haque, Paul Pangaro, and I described several types of interaction---reacting, regulating, learning, balancing, managing, and conversing. In the July + August 2009 issue, Paul Pangaro and I described several types of conversing---agreeing, learning, coordinating, and collaborating---and we proposed using models based on Gordon Pask's Conversation Theory as a guide for improving human-computer interaction. Peter Jones responded, noting that there are other models of conversation and prior work in bringing conversation to human-computer interaction in particular Winograd and Flores 1986 work with The Coordinator. We agree on the importance of The Coordinator and invited Peter to outline the history of models of conversation and their relationship to HCI. His response follows.---Hugh Dubberly

When successful products prevent strategic innovation

Design Management Journal (Former Series), 2010

ABSTRACT As startups become large mainstream corporations, many lose the intense “breakthrough” m... more ABSTRACT As startups become large mainstream corporations, many lose the intense “breakthrough” mentality that characterizes their initial achievements. The willingness to take risks is replaced by a focus on growth and market share. Rather than moving on to the next threshold, satisfying customers becomes the priority. Peter Jones examines this fascinating shift in values and evaluates strategies designed to maintain a company&#39;s innovative spirit.

On Modeling - The language/action model of conversation: can conversation perform acts of design?

Editor's Note: In last year's January + February issue Usman Haque, Paul Pangaro, and I d... more Editor's Note: In last year's January + February issue Usman Haque, Paul Pangaro, and I described several types of interaction---reacting, regulating, learning, balancing, managing, and conversing. In the July + August 2009 issue, Paul Pangaro and I described several types of conversing---agreeing, learning, coordinating, and collaborating---and we proposed using models based on Gordon Pask's Conversation Theory as a guide for improving human-computer interaction. Peter Jones responded, noting that there are other models of conversation and prior work in bringing conversation to human-computer interaction in particular Winograd and Flores 1986 work with The Coordinator. We agree on the importance of The Coordinator and invited Peter to outline the history of models of conversation and their relationship to HCI. His response follows.---Hugh Dubberly

Cognition and collaboration

CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2005

This extended abstract describes the workshop Cognition and Collaboration - Analyzing Distributed... more

Cognitive Artifacts in Complex Work

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005

Being user-oriented: Convergences, divergences, and the potentials for systematic dialogue between disciplines and between researchers, designers, and providers

Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2007

The challenge this panel addresses is drawn from intersecting literature reviews and critical com... more The challenge this panel addresses is drawn from intersecting literature reviews and critical commentaries focusing on: 1) user studies in multiple fields; and 2) the difficulties of bringing different disciplines and perspectives to bear on user-oriented research, design, and practice. 1 The challenge is that while we have made some progress in collaborative work, we have some distance to go to become user-oriented in inter-disciplinary and inter-perspective ways. The varieties of our approaches and solutions are, as some observers suggest, an increasing cacophony. One major difficulty is that most discussions are solution-oriented, offering

Cognition, technology, and work: special issue on collaboration in context: cognitive and organizational artefacts

Cognition, Technology & Work, 2005

... Peter H. Jones Æ Cristina Chisalita Gerrit C. van der Veer ... further into the practices pre... more

Caring for the future: The systemic design of flourishing enterprises

Human commerce utilizes the most significant share of natural resources and produces the largest ... more Human commerce utilizes the most significant share of natural resources and produces the largest aggregate impact on the earth’s environment. As a consequence of modern employment and work cultures, commerce also defines and directs much of the social contract and social organizational forms in developed societies. Sustainable development movements to conserve resources and to democratize or enhance organizational practices have called for culture change or transformation. However, these approaches have not yielded results that will significantly enhance human flourishing in the face of globalized commerce. We further assert that alignment toward sustainable development or so-called corporate sustainability are misguided and systemically depreciative, as they purport to sustain activities that foreseeably accelerate ecological degradation. We propose a modeling system for co-creating strongly sustainable enterprises that will foster whole system flourishing across living ecosystems ...

Systemic Design Principles for Complex Social Systems

Translational Systems Sciences, 2014

Relating Systems Thinking and Design II. Theoretical Evolution in Systemic Design

FormAkademisk - forskningstidsskrift for design og designdidaktikk, 2014

We have joined two issues of FORMakademisk to accommodate two sets of articles developed from rem... more We have joined two issues of FORMakademisk to accommodate two sets of articles developed from remarkable early work presented at the 2013 Relating Systems Thinking to Design Symposium in Oslo. We organized these papers into a theory set, and a set for practice of systemic design, although most of these theoretical works are deeply informed by design and planning practices. The theory issue, Theoretical Evolution in Systemic Design, comprises the perspectives of scholars contributing new work crossing the former boundaries between systems theory and design thinking.

An Ontology for Strongly Sustainable Business Models

Organization & Environment, 2015

Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and ... more Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and social responsibility while maintaining and improving profitability. For many organizations, profit-oriented business models are a major constraint impeding progress in sustainability. A formally defined ontology, a model definition, for profit-oriented business models has been employed globally for several years. However, no equivalent ontology is available in research or practice that enables the description of strongly sustainable business models, as validated by ecological economics and derived from natural, social, and system sciences. We present a framework of strongly sustainable business model propositions and principles as findings from a transdisciplinary review of the literature. A comparative analysis was performed between the framework and the Osterwalder profit-oriented ontology for business models. We introduce an ontology that enables the description of successful strongl...

Design for Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience

Design for Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience Foreword by Dr. John Halamka Design for Care br... more Design for Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience Foreword by Dr. John Halamka Design for Care brings methods and practices found effective across healthcare contexts to designers in all situations, illustrated by current cases & design research. We aim to inform information, service, & system designers to make a positive difference in healthcare. Healthcare and self-care practices are changing, rapidly. Each health sector has a different view of patient or user activity, but in so many cases there is no “user” to design for. Instead, we are all health seekers. The personal journey and spectrum of care may be unique to each health seeker. Designers must understand the whole health seeker – our upstream activities, defining moments, and downstream effects, and the services that we touch along the way. Design has an emerging role as a care provider – we have a responsibility to research, redesign, and remediate the touchpoints of care, informed by our understanding and designing for t...

Designing for whole systems and services in healthcare

Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems - CHI EA '11, 2011

Abstract This CHI 2011 SIG provides a workshop for collective problem finding and community ident... more Abstract This CHI 2011 SIG provides a workshop for collective problem finding and community identification. The goal is to initiate a working group to coordinate systemic design research issues across practitioner communities. This SIG addresses the insufficiency of user-centered design and informatics research to design for system and service-level innovations in healthcare. The SIG seeks to coordinate communications and participation across design practice, research disciplines, and areas of health practice for ...

Collaborative foresight: Complementing long-horizon strategic planning

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2014

Systemic Design Principles for Complex Social Systems.

In G. Metcalf (ed.), Social Systems and Design, Gary Metcalf (editor), Volume 1 of the Translational Systems Science Series, Springer Verlag , 2014

Systems theory and design thinking both share a common orientation to the desired outcomes of com... more Systems theory and design thinking both share a common orientation to the desired outcomes of complex problems, which is to effect highly-leveraged, well-reasoned, and preferred changes in situations of concern. Systems thinking (resulting from its theoretical bias) promotes the understanding of complex problem situations independently of solutions, and demonstrates an analytical bias. Design disciplines demonstrate an action-oriented or generative bias toward creative solutions, but design often ignores deep understanding as irrelevant to futureoriented change. While many practitioners believe there to be compatibility between design and systems theory, the literature shows very few examples of their resolution in theoretical explanation or first principles. This work presents a reasoned attempt to reconcile the shared essential principles common to both fundamental systems theories and design theories, based on meta-analyses and a synthesis of shared principles. An argument developed on current and historical scholarly perspectives is illuminated by relevant complex system cases demonstrating the shared principles. While primarily oriented to complex social systems, the shared systemic design principles apply to all complex design outcomes, product and service systems, information systems, and social organizational systems.

An Ontology for Strongly Sustainable Business Models: Defining an Enterprise Framework Compatible with Natural and Social Science

by Antony Upward and Peter Jones

Organization & Environment, Special Issue: Business Models for Sustainability: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Transformation (http://oae.sagepub.com/cgi/collection/business_models_special_issue), Jul 27, 2016

Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and ... more Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and social responsibility while maintaining and improving profitability. For many organizations, profit-oriented business models are a major constraint impeding progress in sustainability. A formally defined ontology, a model definition, for profit-oriented business models has been employed globally for several years. However, no equivalent ontology is available in research or practice that enables the description of strongly sustainable business models, as validated by ecological economics and derived from natural, social, and system sciences. We present a framework of strongly sustainable business model propositions and principles as findings from a transdisciplinary review of the literature. A comparative analysis was performed between the framework and the Osterwalder profit-oriented ontology for business models. We introduce an ontology that enables the description of successful strongly sustainable business models that resolves weaknesses and includes functionally necessary relationships.

[Since this research was completed, the practitioner visual design tool (the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas) that is conceptually "powered by" the the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Ontology, has been further refined to become the Flourishing Business Canvas - see www.FlourishingBusiness.org for the most recent practice and developments].

This paper is part of the special issue “Business Models for Sustainability: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Transformation” https://blog.ssbmg.com/2013/07/29/call-for-papers-for-a-special-issue-of-organization-environment-business-models-for-sustainability-entrepreneurship-innovation-and-transformation/. It was submitted at the personal invitation of guest editors Prof. Dr. Stefan Schaltegger, Prof. Dr. Erik Hansen and Dr. Florian Lüdeke-Freund (Leuphana University Centre for Sustainability Management)

Collaborative foresight: Complementing long-horizon strategic planning. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 85, 134–152.

by Peter Jones, Thomas Flanagan, and Kevin Dye

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2013

An action case study demonstrates an effective integration of collaborative planning using long-r... more An action case study demonstrates an effective integration of collaborative planning using long-range foresight in a hierarchical government research organization. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of collaborative, bottom-up strategic planning as a complement to top-down strategizing. Large research institutions plan investment over long time horizons and must cope with significant uncertainty, complexity, and mandate changes. Collaborative foresight enhances organizational resilience by improving ideation, problem definition, and consensus in long-horizon strategies. It increases the variety of perspectives in scenario creation, resulting in improved strategic options. Structured Dialogic Design (SDD) was employed as a complementary strategic planning method to the mandated Capabilities-Based Planning (CBP) process. The two methods were conducted in parallel sessions with different organizational participants, strictly limiting information sharing between teams. Participants using SDD to plan efficiently produced a detailed structure representing long-horizon strategic challenges and solution ideas. This collaborative foresight approach demonstrated strong consensus for organizational priorities defined in scenarios and investment pathways. The SDD method demonstrated that transactive and generative planning integrated with traditional rational planning and surpassed it by incorporating deep tacit knowledge from diverse participants. It also fostered organizational cohesion through facilitated collaboration in the planning sessions.

Caring for the Future: The Systemic Design of Flourishing Enterprises

by Peter Jones and Antony Upward

A conference paper that introduced the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas that is concept... more A conference paper that introduced the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas that is conceptually "powered by" the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Ontology. This practitioner visual design tool supports the description of past, current, or future business models that may create outcomes anywhere on a continuum of profit-prioritizing to strongly sustainable. Strongly sustainable outcomes, a term originated by Ecological Economists, are those that "sustain the possibility that human and other life will flourish on this planet forever" (Ehrenfeld).

Slides and other materials from conference presentation: http://systemic-design.net/rsd3-proceedings/business-enterprise-design/

Subsequently the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas has been further refined to become the Flourishing Business Canvas (see www.FlourishingBusiness.org for the most recent practice and developments).

Design Research Methods in Systemic Design

In Proceedings of RSD3, Third Symposium of Relating Systems Thinking to Design., 2014

Systemic design is distinguished from user-oriented and service design practices in several key r... more Systemic design is distinguished from user-oriented and service design practices in several key respects: The expansion and negotiation of system boundaries to frame the design situation, the intentional embrace of sociotechnical complexity, and strategies of systemic integration rather than market differentiation. Systemic design is concerned with higher-order socially-organized systems that encompass multiple subsystems in policy, organizational or product-service contexts. By integrating systems thinking and its methods, systemic design brings human-centered design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems as those found in industrial networks, transportation, medicine and healthcare. It adapts from known design competencies - form and process reasoning, social and generative research methods, and sketching and visualization practices - to describe, map, propose and reconfigure complex services and systems.

Interpretive Collaborative Review: Enabling Multi-Perspectival Dialogues to Generate Collaborative Assignments of Relevance to Information Artefacts in a Dedicated Problem Domain

Elpub, 2008

ON MODELINGThe language/action model of conversation

Interactions, 2010

Editor's Note: In last year's January + February issue Usman Haque, Paul Pangaro, and I d... more Editor's Note: In last year's January + February issue Usman Haque, Paul Pangaro, and I described several types of interaction---reacting, regulating, learning, balancing, managing, and conversing. In the July + August 2009 issue, Paul Pangaro and I described several types of conversing---agreeing, learning, coordinating, and collaborating---and we proposed using models based on Gordon Pask's Conversation Theory as a guide for improving human-computer interaction. Peter Jones responded, noting that there are other models of conversation and prior work in bringing conversation to human-computer interaction in particular Winograd and Flores 1986 work with The Coordinator. We agree on the importance of The Coordinator and invited Peter to outline the history of models of conversation and their relationship to HCI. His response follows.---Hugh Dubberly

When successful products prevent strategic innovation

Design Management Journal (Former Series), 2010

ABSTRACT As startups become large mainstream corporations, many lose the intense “breakthrough” m... more ABSTRACT As startups become large mainstream corporations, many lose the intense “breakthrough” mentality that characterizes their initial achievements. The willingness to take risks is replaced by a focus on growth and market share. Rather than moving on to the next threshold, satisfying customers becomes the priority. Peter Jones examines this fascinating shift in values and evaluates strategies designed to maintain a company&#39;s innovative spirit.

On Modeling - The language/action model of conversation: can conversation perform acts of design?

Editor's Note: In last year's January + February issue Usman Haque, Paul Pangaro, and I d... more Editor's Note: In last year's January + February issue Usman Haque, Paul Pangaro, and I described several types of interaction---reacting, regulating, learning, balancing, managing, and conversing. In the July + August 2009 issue, Paul Pangaro and I described several types of conversing---agreeing, learning, coordinating, and collaborating---and we proposed using models based on Gordon Pask's Conversation Theory as a guide for improving human-computer interaction. Peter Jones responded, noting that there are other models of conversation and prior work in bringing conversation to human-computer interaction in particular Winograd and Flores 1986 work with The Coordinator. We agree on the importance of The Coordinator and invited Peter to outline the history of models of conversation and their relationship to HCI. His response follows.---Hugh Dubberly

Cognition and collaboration

CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2005

This extended abstract describes the workshop Cognition and Collaboration - Analyzing Distributed... more

Cognitive Artifacts in Complex Work

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005

Being user-oriented: Convergences, divergences, and the potentials for systematic dialogue between disciplines and between researchers, designers, and providers

Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2007

The challenge this panel addresses is drawn from intersecting literature reviews and critical com... more The challenge this panel addresses is drawn from intersecting literature reviews and critical commentaries focusing on: 1) user studies in multiple fields; and 2) the difficulties of bringing different disciplines and perspectives to bear on user-oriented research, design, and practice. 1 The challenge is that while we have made some progress in collaborative work, we have some distance to go to become user-oriented in inter-disciplinary and inter-perspective ways. The varieties of our approaches and solutions are, as some observers suggest, an increasing cacophony. One major difficulty is that most discussions are solution-oriented, offering

Cognition, technology, and work: special issue on collaboration in context: cognitive and organizational artefacts

Cognition, Technology & Work, 2005

... Peter H. Jones Æ Cristina Chisalita Gerrit C. van der Veer ... further into the practices pre... more

Caring for the future: The systemic design of flourishing enterprises

Human commerce utilizes the most significant share of natural resources and produces the largest ... more Human commerce utilizes the most significant share of natural resources and produces the largest aggregate impact on the earth’s environment. As a consequence of modern employment and work cultures, commerce also defines and directs much of the social contract and social organizational forms in developed societies. Sustainable development movements to conserve resources and to democratize or enhance organizational practices have called for culture change or transformation. However, these approaches have not yielded results that will significantly enhance human flourishing in the face of globalized commerce. We further assert that alignment toward sustainable development or so-called corporate sustainability are misguided and systemically depreciative, as they purport to sustain activities that foreseeably accelerate ecological degradation. We propose a modeling system for co-creating strongly sustainable enterprises that will foster whole system flourishing across living ecosystems ...

Systemic Design Principles for Complex Social Systems

Translational Systems Sciences, 2014

Relating Systems Thinking and Design II. Theoretical Evolution in Systemic Design

FormAkademisk - forskningstidsskrift for design og designdidaktikk, 2014

We have joined two issues of FORMakademisk to accommodate two sets of articles developed from rem... more We have joined two issues of FORMakademisk to accommodate two sets of articles developed from remarkable early work presented at the 2013 Relating Systems Thinking to Design Symposium in Oslo. We organized these papers into a theory set, and a set for practice of systemic design, although most of these theoretical works are deeply informed by design and planning practices. The theory issue, Theoretical Evolution in Systemic Design, comprises the perspectives of scholars contributing new work crossing the former boundaries between systems theory and design thinking.

An Ontology for Strongly Sustainable Business Models

Organization & Environment, 2015

Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and ... more Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and social responsibility while maintaining and improving profitability. For many organizations, profit-oriented business models are a major constraint impeding progress in sustainability. A formally defined ontology, a model definition, for profit-oriented business models has been employed globally for several years. However, no equivalent ontology is available in research or practice that enables the description of strongly sustainable business models, as validated by ecological economics and derived from natural, social, and system sciences. We present a framework of strongly sustainable business model propositions and principles as findings from a transdisciplinary review of the literature. A comparative analysis was performed between the framework and the Osterwalder profit-oriented ontology for business models. We introduce an ontology that enables the description of successful strongl...

Design for Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience

Design for Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience Foreword by Dr. John Halamka Design for Care br... more Design for Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience Foreword by Dr. John Halamka Design for Care brings methods and practices found effective across healthcare contexts to designers in all situations, illustrated by current cases & design research. We aim to inform information, service, & system designers to make a positive difference in healthcare. Healthcare and self-care practices are changing, rapidly. Each health sector has a different view of patient or user activity, but in so many cases there is no “user” to design for. Instead, we are all health seekers. The personal journey and spectrum of care may be unique to each health seeker. Designers must understand the whole health seeker – our upstream activities, defining moments, and downstream effects, and the services that we touch along the way. Design has an emerging role as a care provider – we have a responsibility to research, redesign, and remediate the touchpoints of care, informed by our understanding and designing for t...

Designing for whole systems and services in healthcare

Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems - CHI EA '11, 2011

Abstract This CHI 2011 SIG provides a workshop for collective problem finding and community ident... more Abstract This CHI 2011 SIG provides a workshop for collective problem finding and community identification. The goal is to initiate a working group to coordinate systemic design research issues across practitioner communities. This SIG addresses the insufficiency of user-centered design and informatics research to design for system and service-level innovations in healthcare. The SIG seeks to coordinate communications and participation across design practice, research disciplines, and areas of health practice for ...

Collaborative foresight: Complementing long-horizon strategic planning

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2014

Systemic Design Principles for Complex Social Systems.

In G. Metcalf (ed.), Social Systems and Design, Gary Metcalf (editor), Volume 1 of the Translational Systems Science Series, Springer Verlag , 2014

Systems theory and design thinking both share a common orientation to the desired outcomes of com... more Systems theory and design thinking both share a common orientation to the desired outcomes of complex problems, which is to effect highly-leveraged, well-reasoned, and preferred changes in situations of concern. Systems thinking (resulting from its theoretical bias) promotes the understanding of complex problem situations independently of solutions, and demonstrates an analytical bias. Design disciplines demonstrate an action-oriented or generative bias toward creative solutions, but design often ignores deep understanding as irrelevant to futureoriented change. While many practitioners believe there to be compatibility between design and systems theory, the literature shows very few examples of their resolution in theoretical explanation or first principles. This work presents a reasoned attempt to reconcile the shared essential principles common to both fundamental systems theories and design theories, based on meta-analyses and a synthesis of shared principles. An argument developed on current and historical scholarly perspectives is illuminated by relevant complex system cases demonstrating the shared principles. While primarily oriented to complex social systems, the shared systemic design principles apply to all complex design outcomes, product and service systems, information systems, and social organizational systems.

An Ontology for Strongly Sustainable Business Models: Defining an Enterprise Framework Compatible with Natural and Social Science

by Antony Upward and Peter Jones

Organization & Environment, Special Issue: Business Models for Sustainability: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Transformation (http://oae.sagepub.com/cgi/collection/business_models_special_issue), Jul 27, 2016

Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and ... more Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and social responsibility while maintaining and improving profitability. For many organizations, profit-oriented business models are a major constraint impeding progress in sustainability. A formally defined ontology, a model definition, for profit-oriented business models has been employed globally for several years. However, no equivalent ontology is available in research or practice that enables the description of strongly sustainable business models, as validated by ecological economics and derived from natural, social, and system sciences. We present a framework of strongly sustainable business model propositions and principles as findings from a transdisciplinary review of the literature. A comparative analysis was performed between the framework and the Osterwalder profit-oriented ontology for business models. We introduce an ontology that enables the description of successful strongly sustainable business models that resolves weaknesses and includes functionally necessary relationships.

[Since this research was completed, the practitioner visual design tool (the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas) that is conceptually "powered by" the the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Ontology, has been further refined to become the Flourishing Business Canvas - see www.FlourishingBusiness.org for the most recent practice and developments].

This paper is part of the special issue “Business Models for Sustainability: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Transformation” https://blog.ssbmg.com/2013/07/29/call-for-papers-for-a-special-issue-of-organization-environment-business-models-for-sustainability-entrepreneurship-innovation-and-transformation/. It was submitted at the personal invitation of guest editors Prof. Dr. Stefan Schaltegger, Prof. Dr. Erik Hansen and Dr. Florian Lüdeke-Freund (Leuphana University Centre for Sustainability Management)

Collaborative foresight: Complementing long-horizon strategic planning. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 85, 134–152.

by Peter Jones, Thomas Flanagan, and Kevin Dye

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2013

An action case study demonstrates an effective integration of collaborative planning using long-r... more An action case study demonstrates an effective integration of collaborative planning using long-range foresight in a hierarchical government research organization. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of collaborative, bottom-up strategic planning as a complement to top-down strategizing. Large research institutions plan investment over long time horizons and must cope with significant uncertainty, complexity, and mandate changes. Collaborative foresight enhances organizational resilience by improving ideation, problem definition, and consensus in long-horizon strategies. It increases the variety of perspectives in scenario creation, resulting in improved strategic options. Structured Dialogic Design (SDD) was employed as a complementary strategic planning method to the mandated Capabilities-Based Planning (CBP) process. The two methods were conducted in parallel sessions with different organizational participants, strictly limiting information sharing between teams. Participants using SDD to plan efficiently produced a detailed structure representing long-horizon strategic challenges and solution ideas. This collaborative foresight approach demonstrated strong consensus for organizational priorities defined in scenarios and investment pathways. The SDD method demonstrated that transactive and generative planning integrated with traditional rational planning and surpassed it by incorporating deep tacit knowledge from diverse participants. It also fostered organizational cohesion through facilitated collaboration in the planning sessions.

Caring for the Future: The Systemic Design of Flourishing Enterprises

by Peter Jones and Antony Upward

A conference paper that introduced the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas that is concept... more A conference paper that introduced the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas that is conceptually "powered by" the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Ontology. This practitioner visual design tool supports the description of past, current, or future business models that may create outcomes anywhere on a continuum of profit-prioritizing to strongly sustainable. Strongly sustainable outcomes, a term originated by Ecological Economists, are those that "sustain the possibility that human and other life will flourish on this planet forever" (Ehrenfeld).

Slides and other materials from conference presentation: http://systemic-design.net/rsd3-proceedings/business-enterprise-design/

Subsequently the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas has been further refined to become the Flourishing Business Canvas (see www.FlourishingBusiness.org for the most recent practice and developments).

Design Research Methods in Systemic Design

In Proceedings of RSD3, Third Symposium of Relating Systems Thinking to Design., 2014

Systemic design is distinguished from user-oriented and service design practices in several key r... more Systemic design is distinguished from user-oriented and service design practices in several key respects: The expansion and negotiation of system boundaries to frame the design situation, the intentional embrace of sociotechnical complexity, and strategies of systemic integration rather than market differentiation. Systemic design is concerned with higher-order socially-organized systems that encompass multiple subsystems in policy, organizational or product-service contexts. By integrating systems thinking and its methods, systemic design brings human-centered design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems as those found in industrial networks, transportation, medicine and healthcare. It adapts from known design competencies - form and process reasoning, social and generative research methods, and sketching and visualization practices - to describe, map, propose and reconfigure complex services and systems.

Design For Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience

We Tried To Warn You: Innovations In Leadership For The Learning Organization

Team Design: A Practitioner's Guide to Collaborative Innovation

Caring for the Future: The Systemic Design of Flourishing Enterprises

by Peter Jones and Antony Upward

Human commerce utilizes the most significant share of natural resources and produces the largest ... more Human commerce utilizes the most significant share of natural resources and produces the largest aggregate impact on the earth’s environment. As a consequence of modern employment and work cultures, commerce, corporations as opposed to governments, also construct much of the social contract and social organizational forms in developed societies. Sustainable development movements to conserve resources and to democratize or enhance organizational practices have called for culture change or transformation. However, these approaches have not yielded results that will significantly enhance human flourishing in the face of globalized commerce, which has no common governance system. We suggest that the goals of alignment toward sustainable development or so-called corporate sustainability are misguided and systemically depreciative, as they purport to sustain activities that foreseeably accelerate ecological degradation. We propose a modeling practice for stakeholder design of strongly sustainable enterprises for the intention of whole system flourishing across living ecosystems and organized social systems. This systemic design approach to business transformation functions at the level of the business model. We claim that business model design affords the highest leverage across all modes of organizing for collective cultural adoption ecosystemic practices.

Toward the Integration of Visual Languages for Systemic Design. ISSS 2012

Systems theories are formulations of frameworks, models, and reasoning practices intended to enab... more Systems theories are formulations of frameworks, models, and reasoning practices intended to enable effective problem solving at the systemic scale of application. Systems thinking enables perspectives for reasoning and resolution for complex interconnected (wicked) problems based on these theories. Historically, the visual models associated with systems thinking have been developed for their efficient communication and objective clarity, to facilitate the specification of whole systems, component relationships, dynamics and emergent properties. These precedents of pictorial and visual presentation have suggested the persistence of a limited visual language that inhibits creative and effective communication of novel systemic properties in complex systems, especially in human and social systems.