Systems Thinking Canvas for Public Administration
A Tool for Exploring Complex Problem Spaces
Systems thinking is on everyone’s lips—especially in public-sector innovation. It is seen as a key to better understanding and addressing complex problems such as climate change, digitalization, and societal upheaval. Existing administrative structures are often not designed to systematically capture the interdependencies between sustainability goals, technological developments, and social change.
This is where the “Systems Thinking Canvas” comes in: it offers a structured approach to analyzing complex interrelations in public administration. It helps build a holistic understanding of problems, enabling more targeted measures and the development of solutions that are viable in the long term.
The Systems Thinking Canvas: Four Core Methods
- Interdependency Analysis: Identify causes, effects, and their interactions to make systemic relationships visible.
- Systemic Time Perspective: Broaden problem understanding along the timeline of past, present, and future.
- Stakeholder Mapping: Capture the relevant actors from administration, politics, business, and civil society—as well as their resources and interests in solving the problem.
- Problem Statement: Sharpen the central challenge to lay the groundwork for concrete, impact-oriented, and actionable measures.
Urban Digitainability Lab: Tools for Digital and Sustainable Transformation in Public Administration
Within the Urban Digitainability Lab, tools and learning materials are developed and tested for public administration to support cities in their digital and sustainable transformation. The next focus topic centers on “Municipal Data Literacy and Sustainability.”
