Can the evolution of societal systems be accelerated? A concept for a networked place-based facility for collaborative sense-making

Abstract

The term system is often used to address a phenomenon that exists outside of a single organisation. It usually describes intractable challenges with an implied sense of futility, like when people say, “We cannot change the system” or “it will take a long time to change the system”. This casual use of “system” limits its potential to frame wider conversations that can enable society to harness the rapid growth of knowledge and data, and its implications to understand complex adaptive systems. The thesis is anchored in Systems Oriented Design (SOD) and draws on academic literature, published policy, and the author’s experience to propose an institutional construct called verksted. A verksted convenes actors from practice, research, and education towards shared sense-making of complex situations that cross boundaries. The boundaries are, real but imagined constructs, between organisations, across disciplines and locations, and levels of expertise and governance. The first part of the thesis reviews literature on systems, societal systems and systemic interventions. It adds a review of literature on collaboration, complexity, enterprise architecture, and digitalisation. The second part reviews the health system as an internationally recognised concept that is also a critical societal system in many countries. This review then zooms in on the Norwegian health system, its evolution, current structure, and central policies. It describes SOD-H, a framework to elaborate how system-orientation can be applied to sense-making and sense-sharing. The third and final part explains the concept of “verksted” and its three core concepts: Verksted Loop, Verksted Capability Map and Verksted Topology. These concepts are used to review two organisations that exhibit characteristics of a verksted. The entities have different formats and structures within the Norwegian health system and are conceptually situated in the “Sense-making and sense-sharing” subsystem of SOD-H. This thesis makes two contributions: 1) it explains the nature of a societal system using the health system as an example and 2) it conceptualises verksted as an autonomous yet networked, place-based physical facility where participants and their organisations can learn to navigate complexity in societal systems through collaborative sense-making. The thesis is directed at two audiences: a) the SOD community i.e. practitioners, researchers, and educators and b) the makers and influencers of innovation public policy i.e. funding agencies, industry associations, and labour associations. An introduction sets the context, and a closing section discusses the hypotheses and suggests themes for further research. A prologue and an epilogue express my motivation for this thesis and my reflections on translating the research in practice. An appendix contains unfinished concepts and ideas as an invitation for others to explore SOD as an approach to transform societal systems.