Making Sense of Systems—and Using Systems to Make Sense of the Enterprise
Summary
Boon's perspectives on systems draw from a mix of systems perspectives, which include Checkland's soft-systems methodology, Capra's systems view of life, and Ricigliano's Systems Practice approaches. He'll also share some of the practicalities and challenges of learning and applying systems thinking (which hasn't been simple), while having to deliver on UX outcomes at the same time.
Key Insights
-
•
Enterprise UX involves designing not just products but collective organizational change among stakeholders.
-
•
Shifting from user-centered to organizational-value-centered design reveals broader systemic interdependencies.
-
•
Polarity mapping helps balance competing but interdependent priorities instead of choosing one over the other.
-
•
The Backcasting approach, including dystopian futures, enriches understanding of possible long-term changes.
-
•
Most systems thinking tools are used selectively to avoid alienating stakeholders unfamiliar with complex diagrams.
-
•
Renaming services with verbs improves user clarity and situational awareness across complex workflows.
-
•
Creating design qualities in the voice of users acts as a self-perpetuating system feedback loop.
-
•
Sharing design artifacts openly across teams promotes cross-departmental collaboration and mutual benefit.
-
•
A daily Slack feed of user research comments fosters ongoing organizational awareness and system muscle.
-
•
Cultivating trustful relationships is foundational since complex systems work ultimately depends on people.
Notable Quotes
"Enterprise UX is really hard because, in addition to designing for products, we also design for our own change and the change our colleagues navigate."
"Systems thinking for enterprise UX is like doing research and design on ourselves, our colleagues, and our work."
"Polarity mapping forces you to balance two things that seem like opposites but are actually interdependent."
"Good services are verbs, bad services are nouns – using verbs helps users know where they are in the workflow."
"Change doesn’t happen because we made a product; change happens through how people respond and behave."
"We need to work on relationships with stakeholders because that’s how things get done in complex systems."
"Using systems tools is only about 5% of my day-to-day work; I handpick them to meaningfully engage stakeholders."
"Behavior begets behavior – by modeling sharing and documentation, others start adopting those habits."
"Designing for equity means bringing voices of those not in the room back into the system we design."
"You have to put yourself in stakeholders’ shoes and understand their domain to have meaningful conversations."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Prioritization work is a political process, and politics are hard to do in technology."
Mark Interrante Harry MaxAI for Prioritization (3rd of 3 seminars)
July 11, 2024
"What if we are optimizing ourselves into relevance?"
Patrizia BertiniThe (r)evolution of designOps: It’s Time to Think (really) BIG
September 11, 2025
"The phrase card sort may not require translation itself, but the activity it represents certainly does."
Shan ShenTranslating UX Terms into Business Contexts
November 29, 2023
"Being data informed is not data driven—blindly following data can kill you, like the Challenger explosion."
Adam ThomasSurvival Metrics – Making Change in a Fast, Data-Informed, and Politically Safe Way
December 6, 2022
"Research really is the most predictive practice an organization has — we are the only ones who can really predict the future."
Robin BeersResearch as a Catalyst for Organizational Transformation
March 12, 2021
"Assistive technology has to communicate with the destination, that’s your website or product."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
"Playbacks are stakeholder-focused meetings that sell the work’s story and drive buy-in, different from critiques focused on craft."
Joseph MeersmanSweating the Pixel: Scaling Quality through Critique
June 10, 2021
"I’m still early on in measuring accessibility impact but tying early bug fixes to ROI is promising."
Deanna Washington Bria Alexander Jon Fukuda Saara Kamppari-Miller Farid SabitovConnecting the Ops: Plenary Panel and Closing Circle
September 9, 2022
"We have the responsibility to redistribute our power and include those who have a stake in the work we do."
Aaron Stienstra Lashanda HodgeLeveraging Civic Design to Advance Equity and Rebuild Trust in the US Federal Government
December 8, 2021
