Description

Building better systems: Health system innovation 

In this game we will learn to use the four keys needed to unlock systems and solve the systemic and wicked problems we are facing in today’s society. We will use the health system as a playground but the thinking behind can be used for system innovation in general. 

The game is inspired by the Greenpaper on System Innovation Building Better Systems, which is published by the Rockwool Foundations System Innovation Initiative.  The paper lays out a series of steps people can take to create the new systems needed to meet societal challenges. 

We will learn about the dynamics of large-scale system innovation based on the model developed by Professor Frank Geels, the University of Manchester. His multi-level perspective shows how change comes about through a combination of developments at three system levels: The micro, the meso and the macro. Innovating across a system or creating a new system requires engagement on each of these levels at the same time. 

System shifts are unlocked by working with four keys:

1.     Purpose

2.     Power

3.     Resources

4.     Relationships

Purpose: The most powerful way to shift a system is to change what it is for, the philosophy underpinning it. System innovators shift systems by developing solutions based on this very different operating philosophy that demonstrate a new system purpose, around which further activity can be organized. 

Power: It is almost impossible to shift the purpose of a system unless there is also a shift
in who has the power to determine how resources flow, what takes priority, who matters and what is counted as a good outcome. 

Resource flows: A system only shifts when the resources flowing through it change in a fundamental way. 

Relationships: A system is a collection of parts which come together repeatedly to achieve an outcome, a constellation rather than individual points of light. Each part on its own has limited significance; it is when they are brought together that they form a system. 

When working with system innovation, like this healthsystem case – these four keys make up a set. Systems are often hard to change because power, relationships, and resources are locked together in a reinforcing pattern according to the current purpose. Systems start to change when this pattern is disrupted and opened up. Then a new configuration can emerge.