Seeing the System: Tools for Understanding Complex Community Challenges

A three-hour virtual workshop from the Tamarack Institute that introduces systems thinking to people working on complex community issues. It is for community changemakers, nonprofit leaders, municipal staff, collaborative tables and funders, and needs no prior systems thinking experience.

Through short introductions, examples, reflection and hands-on activities, participants move from individual stories and symptoms to patterns and systemic conditions, identify the actors and forces shaping an issue, explore the layers of a system from visible events to mental models, and look for leverage points. The aim is not to map everything but to choose the right systems tool for the question at hand. A one-hour coaching session a month later helps participants put the learning into practice.