Systems Thinking
How the organization really works, as opposed to how the org chart says it works.
What the course is
A two-day course on finding out how your organization actually operates, and on tackling workplace problems through systems thinking rather than through another reorganisation. Participants build the vocabulary for communicating about systems, the causal diagramming techniques for describing one, and the systems archetypes that let you recognize a pattern you have seen before. The point is to be able to help a work team with a complex problem and design an intervention that addresses the system instead of the symptom.
Maps to Achieving Results under the current framework, and to Strategic Thinking and Innovation in particular. Systems thinking also feeds Merit and Competence: Problem Solving. Under the pre-October-2025 framework this was Leading Change.
Before the first day
To receive a certificate of completion, participants must attend all days of instruction and complete all course requirements.
What you will be able to do afterwards
Learning outcomes, in the order the course builds them.
- Describe the cause-and-effect dynamics behind performance, good and bad
- Apply the vocabulary and diagramming techniques of systems thinking to real workplace analysis
- Apply systems archetypes and tools to your own workplace challenges
- Work with enterprise architecture, flowcharting, performance measures, and efficiency against productivity
- Analyse a system for risk, and look at systems design, layout and quality
What it covers
- Cause-and-effect dynamics behind good and bad performance
- Vocabulary for communicating about systems
- Causal diagramming techniques
- Systems archetypes applied to real situations
- Designing interventions for teams facing complex problems
Who should attend
Executives and managers who want to understand how systems thinking makes an organization more productive, including alongside tools like Lean Six Sigma and risk reduction strategies.
The stated audience is executives and managers working on operations or persistent workplace problems. As with the programs, the grade is guidance rather than a gate.
How to buy it
On the GSA Schedule
Course LEAD8100 is priced on GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract 47QRAA24D004K at $659.88 per participant, so a contracting office can order it under FAR Subpart 8.4 without an open-market procurement.
Private classes are priced as a flat total for a class-size band rather than per seat, so a full cohort costs materially less than the per-participant figure suggests.
Delivery and scheduling
The course runs live online or in person at your location, on dates you choose, as a private class for a single agency. It is not currently on the open-enrollment calendar.
Tuition is $899 per seat, and it can be funded with an SF-182. Call (202) 314-3580 to talk through headcount.
Interested in Systems Thinking?
Tell us the headcount and roughly when you need it. We will come back with dates and a price against the GSA Schedule.