Allllll the questions (& visuals)

Read other blogs in this series: Prologue, Introduction (blog 1), A Complex Matter (blog 2), Systemic Viewpoints (blog 3), Shapeshifting Design (blog 4), De-methodising Design? (intermezzo blog), The Relating Public Servant (blog 5), Relating Design Story (blog 6), The Collaborating Public Servant (blog 7) Collaborating Design Story (blog 8), The Learning Public Servant: REWILD-ing the mind (blog 9) and Learning Design Story (blog 10)

Systemic design thinking and practices are gaining momentum by entering the field of government policies, services and program design. In the 10–part “Unbounded Affairs: Systemic Design (with)in Government’’ blog series a diverse collective of thinkers and practitioners explores the concept of “public systemic design” for a relational future.

Since publishing the blog series various people have asked for the blog series visuals in one place, and a bundle of questions to pull from for upcoming conferences, masterclasses, publications and day-to-day work practices.

>> Here are all the visuals in one PDF document. Get in touch for other formats!

>> The 100+ questions asked in the blog series are themed and bundled below:

• Questions about emotions, philosophy and the state of the world
• Questions about systems, design(ing) & collaboration
• Questions on intersecting (Indigenous, Western) world views related to capitalism, colonization and (old, new) economies through a complexity lens
• Questions about (inter)systemic design in a government context
• Questions about (the future of) government and designing with “complexity” in public services
• Questions about/for the “designing” public servant

Happy questioning!

Questions about emotions, philosophy and the state of the world

1. How did we find ourselves mired in this complex, post-pandemic mess?
2. How do we go about making choices as to what to restore or regenerate given the “urgent” multiple crises the world faces?
3. What will the world look like for our future generations?
4. What is our world turning into?
5. What’s going to happen next?
6. Where do I end, and where do you begin?
7. Has anything ever been “un-pre-cedented” or “un-for-seen”?
8. How do we arrive into personal relationships of growth, healing, development?
9. Could learning, writing, listening spark curiosity, imagination and new pathways?
10. What is “the” system?
11. Do people perceive themselves inside or outside of “the” system?
12. Does “the” system need design?
13. Or has “the” system designed life, and thus humanity within it, and should we therefore focus on “redesigning” ourselves instead?
14. What do people fit in “the system”, and what do they then leave out?

Questions about systems, design(ing) & collaboration

1. What are systems?
2. What is design?
3. What is designing?
4. How do we understand the words “system”, “design”, “designing” differently?
5. How do different ways of “seeing systems” show up in our design choices and in the outcomes of design interventions?
6. How are designing in or with a human-created systems view and a natural-wholistic view different?
7. Do we inhibit “square”-separate systemic viewpoints, “circular”-whole systemic viewpoints, or both?
8. Can systems be designed, or do they design us?
9. What do people mean when they say: “I want to redesign the system” or “we need to work more systemically”?
10. What “system” are people talking about?
11. What kind of system(ic design) are we talking about?
12. Why should we think about systemic design?
13. What is shapeshifting?
14. What is intersystemic design?
15. What is the role of shapeshifting in intersystemic design?
16. What is affecting the quality of our collaborations?
17. What are we missing, and who are we not seeing?
18. What is towing in the undercurrent, underneath the tasks, methodologies, organisational structures and our human, political selves?
19. What needs to be systemically redesigned?
20. How to think about “impact” of our designs when acknowledging complexity?
21. Can we or should we measure “value”, and if so, how to go about it?
22. What is a good analogy or metaphor to describe this new body of systemic design thinking and practice to ourselves, a friend, mother, husband or colleague?
23. What is the “systemic design dilemma”?
24. How can we overcome this “systemic design dilemma”?
25. How different are the design “costs” in different systemic views?
26. How to design to “sustain and regenerate life”?

Questions on intersecting (Indigenous, Western) world views related to capitalism, colonization and (old, new) economies through a complexity lens

1. Why are we cutting the oldest, most beautiful trees?
2. Why do people lose their rental home to people who already own two homes?
3. Whose worldly views are dominant and whose views are oppressed?
4. How is Indigenous oppression related to colonialism and capitalism?
5. How to practise a more “oppression-aware”, “life-centred” public service design in a government context?
6. How might we better bring together and apply different (“Western”, “Indigenous”) systemic lenses in design processes?
7. How might we decolonise and “un-center” humans in systemic design?
8. What is “squircularity”?
9. Who is Indigenous?
10. What can diverse systemic views bring us when designing for a post-Anthropocenic Era: the Symbiocene?
11. How can public systemic design reframe and re-envision societal, ecological and economic challenges by initiating collective research inquiries that question our systemic worldviews and reveal the interconnectedness between our personal worldviews and our government policies and services?
12. Will “net zero” policies mostly focus on introducing innovative technology, or will they also focus on economic “de-growth” and lowering individual consumerism in a post-capitalist world?

Questions about (inter)systemic design in a government context

1. Could “systemic design” be a viable approach to work with complexity in the public service?
2. What is the value of public systemic design for the public sector?
3. What are its characteristics?
4. How is it being practised already by various actors across the globe, and what kind of outcomes does or could it generate?
5. What is challenging about systemic design as a concept and as an approach, especially when applied in a public service context?
6. How does it help to overcome “hard” tasks in a public service context?
7. Where lies the “deep” systemic design paradox in a government context?
8. What can we do to transcend and overcome the paradox?
9. What is the role of “systemic design” when developing and delivering public services for the public good?
10. What does the practice of “intersystemic” public service design look like?
11. What does intersystemic “shapeshifting” design thinking then mean for our traditional service design approaches?
12. Could intersystemic shapeshifting design collectively uncover, address, challenge, decolonise* and potentially liberate the way humans see and position themselves to create better outcomes for people, places and nature?
13. Can we imagine how intersystemic “shapeshifting” design is already influencing the way we design, deliver and access public services?
14. Is intersystemic “shapeshifting design” a fifth design order?
15. Is this an order we can or should design for?
16. Or does “life” design us, and should humans thus “un-design” and “un-center” within?
17. What will it take to help the field of service design evolve into an intersystemic design direction, and how long will it take?
18. Should we de-methodise design practices when working in between systems (especially at a policy level)?
19. And if so, why is that challenging in a public service context?
20. What are the alternatives?

Questions about (the future of) government and designing with “complexity” in public services

1. Why do we need to apply different ways of working in the public sector?
2. Why is a different public sector response to current societal and economic challenges needed?
3. What is problematic or challenging about current public innovation approaches, such as “human-centred” design”?
4. Why is it so hard to be a public servant in the 21st century?”
5. What if we are designing the “wrong” services, just at a faster speed?
6. What is “systemic design” (with)in government according to you?
7. What is public systemic design, according to you?
8. What is “complexity” in a government context?
9. Why is it so hard to work on complex design challenges within a government context?
10. What would be our consideration when writing about designing for “relationality” in a government / public service context?
11. What does the future of the public service look like, and what is the role of the “designing” public servant within, when transitioning from the “Anthropocene” to the “Symbiocene”?
12. How do we go from designing public services for individual humans to designing sets of “relational” services that acknowledge and support “interconnected” (human and non-human) lives in an “entangled” world?
13. Are there ways for governments, and public servants within, to get better at seeing and responding to complexity when designing public policies, programs and services?
14. How could governments use systemic design as an approach to achieve better outcomes for people, society and our planet?
15. How might we apply (inter)systemic design in a government context?
16. What are the paradoxes, dilemmas and tensions of systemic design in a government context?
17. How to design for relationality in a government context?
18. Is “end-to-end” service design a suitable approach to design public services?
19. What would a future organisational government structure look like if it were to reflect “entangled lives”?
20. What kind of complex or “hard” government tasks, or “constraints” can be liberated in a public context by using intersystemic “shapeshifting” design?
21. Are complexity and bureaucracy incompatible companions?
22. What else can we think of to make intersystemic design more widely accessible and accepted as a viable approach for public policy and service design, especially in a government context that will always naturally gravitate towards “stability” over uncertainty?
23. Why is the realm of “policy making” an interesting field for intersystemic design, in comparison to the realm of law and regulations?
24. Which (systemic) conditions are currently hampering more “balanced” human and non-human lives?
25. Is there an “in-between” approach?
26. How would a new service or policy interact with the existing policy and service context, in between all the “forces” that interact with it?
27. How would a new policy or regulation interact with existing services or policies?
28. Who did we miss?
29. Who or what did we exclude (people, ideas, views, services)?
30. Can we imagine how any given context would respond to new ideas?
31. Which existing public services or policies need to be “sunsetted”?

Questions about/for the “designing” public servant

1. What happens when we engage and work with complex matters if we see ourselves as seemingly “external” and “objective” to the policies, projects and programs we work on?
2. How do the perspectives of human “designers” on all things living and non-living play a role in between our perceptions of “systems” (introduced in this blog series as: systemic viewpoints) and our “design” activities within?
3. What are governments and society missing out on by having public servants leave their human complexity by the door?
4. What if we were to bring our own human complexity into the public service?
5. How do we “do” systemic design instead of just thinking about it?
6. How can we make the human, political element more visible and actionable in systemic design practice, especially in a public service design context?
7. How can people “do” systemic design in their work without having to be an expert in it and without having to comply with all sorts of (cultural, academic) rules, standards, norms?
8. What can public servants do in their respective “complex” work scenarios?
9. How can public servants work with irreducible “complexity”?
10. How can public servants become more cognisant of dynamics and actors that reproduce “oppressive” systems?
11. What is the public service designer feeling challenged by?
12. How does choosing not to work with “complexity” show up in our public service work?
13. How can we work with and within “complexity” in a government context, while aspiring public services that are reflective of nested, relational layers?
14. What if we could unleash the capacity and aspiration within thousands of public servants to work with complexity, instead of trying to leave it behind?
15. How can public servants “jump out” of these constraining structures and innovate for transformative, diverse and regenerative futures, while not getting “pushed out” for being too “unruly”?
16. How do we “view” the world, how do we situate ourselves in the challenges we work on, and how does that translate into our public designs?
17. How can public servants then design systemically by internalising the interconnectedness between ourselves and the issues we work on, as well as with all the (human and non-human) elements that are affected by these issues as much as we can, while avoiding stalling in “paralysis-by-analysis”?
18. What does intersystemic design mean for the way public servants design and deliver services?
19. What would need to change from the perspectives of both leaders/decision-makers and citizens?
20. How to create designers, and public servants, who are co-navigators, who are conduits to enable and evoke space for healthy people, nature and places?
21. How to demonstrate people in leadership positions of the value of systemic design?
22. How can we start sharing more stories on “navigating complexity and certainty” by public sector servants, and about how we think about delivering on the public good?
23. How to slow down while getting requests to speed up and deliver programs, policies and services?
24. How to work within these tensions as a public servant doing the public service “work”, such as supporting to shift laws, regulations and policies to positively influence the big challenges of our times, all the way to shifting our own thought patterns and behaviours as public servants?

About the Author, this Blog series and the Collective

Get in touch! My email is: first name dot last name @gov dot bc dot ca

Marlieke Kieboom (white, she-her, Zeeuws-Flamish-Dutch-German and “unknown” roots, MSc Political Anthropology + MA Complex Emergencies, immigrant settler* in Canada | Turtle Island) is a public service designer with 20+ years of experience and knowledge in the fields of social innovation, systemic (service) design, complexity science and public policy. Marlieke has led major collaborations between academia, governments, non-profits and communities in Europe, Canada and Latin America. She finds joy in developing new approaches for coming to see and relate to each other and the complexity of our worlds in collaborative, participatory and decolonised ways. Read more about what inspired Marlieke to write this blog series in the Prologue.

Marlieke wrote this blog series based on conversations with a like-minded and like-hearted collective — the “Ministry of Unbounded & Entangled Affairs” — whose people work and think at the intersections of design, public policy, complexity, social justice and deep ecology. The series was written over the course of 2022. Read more about the collective and the blog series in Blog 1.

Marlieke currently works for the Public Service of British Columbia in the field of public service and systemic design. This blog series was written in her personal time on personal title. Her personal views are mixed in with the collective she spoke with. They do not represent the political views of the government she works for.

Consider making a one-time contribution via Paypal or becoming a supporter on Patreon to get early access to upcoming blogs and express gratitude for 300+ hours of “free” research and to nurture future writing, community building and the development of open learning material on systemic design for public servants. Thank you!

* “A settler is someone who benefits from the privilege of having their worldview imposed upon the lands and the bodies of everyone living in these lands” — Chelsea Vowel (Vice, 2019)