Catalogue of Systems Thinking Tools
| Tool | Description | Possible Use | How | Useful Resources | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Causal Loop Diagram | CLD is an analytical tool to document, model, and visually map the different interactions among a system’s elements, variables or subsystems, and represent the nature and direction of their relationships. | 1. Describe the system and its boundaries 2. Identify and understand systems problems 3. Support decision-making processes | Paper vensim.com | www.youtube.com/watch www.youtube.com/watch | www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6310960/pdf/12961_2018_Article_394.pdf |
| Cynefin | Cynefin offers five decision-making contexts or "domains"—simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder—that help managers to identify how they perceive situations and make sense of their own and other people's behaviour. | 1. Describe the system and its boundaries 2. Identify and understand systems problems | www.mindtools.com/pages/article/cynefin-framework.htm | pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22128193/ | |
| Decision Space | Used to design and evaluate the decentralization of health systems. It examines choice as a function of agency. | 1. Describe the system and its boundaries 2. Identify and understand systems problems 3. Support decision-making processes | Excel | ||
| Effectiveness Decay | The concept describes the achievement of “effective coverage” of an intervention to the conditional probability of its successive events. System factors are considered (e.g beginning with if and where a patient accesses care; whether and how services are administered, received and adhered to; and the success rate of treatment in producing a positive health outcome). | 1. Identify and understand systems problems 2. Identify solutions to problems 3. Support decision-making processes 4. Monitor and evaluate system interventions | public.tableau.com/s/ powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/ | www.youtube.com/watch | www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32772891 |
| Embedded Research | Embedded research is best understood as an approach, not a specific method nor a tool. It describes the type of research in which researchers are part of the health system they are aiming to study. | 1. Identify and understand systems problems 2. Identify solutions to problems 3. Support decision-making processes 4. Monitor and evaluate system interventions | N/A | www.ahpsr.org/stories/the-bumpy-road-to-better-health/ | |
| Mind Mapping | Is a method by which you can take notes and visually organize information. Useful for brainstorming. | 1. Identify and understand systems problems 2. Identify solutions to problems 3. Support decision-making processes | Paper www.xmind.net | www.youtube.com/watch | |
| Outcome Mapping | Outcome mapping facilitates planning of complex interventions by clarifying who are the key stakeholders, what are their relationships and how their work should contribute to immediate outcomes. | 1. Analyse stakeholders 2. Monitor and evaluate system interventions | Paper | www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23526058 | |
| Process Analysis | Systematic approach to understand, analyse and optimize processes in a participatory and action-oriented manner. | 1. Describe the system and its boundaries 2. Analyse stakeholders 3. Identify and understand systems problems 4. Identify solutions to problems 5. Support decision-making processes | www.bizagi.com www.bonitasoft.com | www.youtube.com/watch | www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32146901 |
| Reflective Practice | Integration of guided critical thinking into routine activities. Can be used to reflect on planning activities or any other priority. | 1. Identify and understand systems problems 2. Monitor and evaluate system interventions | Paper | pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29177215 | |
| Social Network Analysis | Is the process of investigating social structures within the health system with the use of networks and graph theory. | 1. Describe the system and its boundaries 2. Analyse stakeholders | NodeXL UCINet PowerBI | www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21840934 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28637228/ www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7121135/ | |
| Soft System Methodology (SSM) | SSM is an organized learning system that can be used for general problem solving and in the management of change. It compiles several approaches and tools to understand the system. No software is needed. (e.g root cause analysis, CAWOT, etc) | 1. Describe the system and its boundaries 2. Analyse stakeholders 3. Identify and understand systems problems 4. Identify solutions to problems 5. Support decision-making processes | Paper | www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31521156 www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1057/jors.2012.21 | |
| Stakeholder Mapping | Stakeholder mapping is the visual process of laying out all the stakeholders of a product, project, or idea on one map. The main benefit of a stakeholder map is to get a visual representation of all the people who can influence your project and how they are connected. | 1. Analyse stakeholders | Paper www.xmind.net | www.youtube.com/watch | |
| System Dynamics Modelling | Systems dynamics is an approach to describe, model, simulate, and analyse dynamically complex issues/systems at a relatively high system level. It allows to simulate feedback and accumulation effects on specific blocks of the system. | 1. Identify and understand systems problems 2. Identify solutions to problems 3. Test and model potential solutions | www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056198/pdf/AJPH.2014.301884.pdf | ||
| Theory of Change | Theory of Change is essentially a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. | 1. Identify and understand systems problems 2. Identify solutions to problems 3. Support decision-making processes | Paper Several open software available | www.theoryofchange.org | pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32760440/ |