Our world is becoming increasingly complex.

Systems thinking recognizes that complex systems are different from simple or complicated systems. Complicated systems may have many moving parts, but they are mostly predictable with individual components that can be analyzed, dissassembled, and reassembled. Complex systems feature dynamic interrelationships, adaptation, and emergent behavior that defy straightforward analysis and predictive control.

In short: simple or complicated problems tend to be predictable, controllable, and designable, while complex problems are unpredictable, self-organizing, and emergent.

This collection of frameworks is intended to help strengthen your ability to productively think about complex problems. These frameworks are not only analytical tools, they are also interpretative lenses through which complexity can be understood. They represent a critical shift in thinking about complex systems as different from complicated systems by shifting from a purely mechanistic view of systems to a more nuanced appreciation of their dynamic, interconnected, and often unpredictable nature of complex systems.

Many of these frameworks use related concepts, but they describe them in different ways using different language, or different metaphors, often depending on the context from which they emerged.  By providing these frameworks in the form of a collection, we hope you will find one (or more) that resonate and that will help you think differently about complex problems.