About the project

The frameworks in this collection were initially gathered and/or generated by me, Diane Finegood. The collection was put together from many different sources, over more than a decade, and has been used to support dialogues, teaching and workshops about complexity and systems thinking.

My ideas about how to spread systems thinking have evolved over the years. In 2017, I co-authored a paper calling for a complex systems model of evidence for public health. In 2020, I co-chaired a panel of experts from the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences asking “Where to Next?” for systems-based approaches in public health. In 2021, I reflected on building an evidence base on the impact of systems thinking for wicked problems, but later realized that this would take too long and would also encourage a reductionist frame of mind rather than a systems-thinking approach. Instead, I concluded that by making systems-thinking frameworks more accessible through this website, I could help more people better address complex problems.

Many of the frameworks in this collection were developed by other leaders in the field of systems thinking including Snowden, Zimmerman, Bar-Yam, Greenhalgh and Meadows. To make visual tools available for use, all of the frameworks have been reimagined and redrawn by graphic artist Sam Bradd of Drawing Change. These versions of both new and well-known frameworks have been licensed in the Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED) which means you are free to share the material, provided that

• you give appropriate credit
• you do not use images for commercial purposes, and 
• you do not distribute remixed, transformed, or modified materials.

Our intention is to continue to evolve the set of frameworks in the collection.  As time permits and funds become available to commission more illustrations, we will add new frameworks to the collection.  The advisory team will help with curation.  If you have ideas for frameworks that should be included in the collection please get in touch.