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This article explores snowmelt as a transitory and catalytic state that occurs in nature. We describe it here, as it provides us with a powerful metaphor for understanding human systems.

Snowmelt is the phase between crystalised solid and an energised liquid. Snowmelt combines elements of ice and water; occurring when energy, in the form of heat, begins to unlock an asset stored over the cooler months.

It is a period of unlocking the latent, life-giving potential in the soil, river systems, and oceans. When mycelium, microbes, and insects emerge again to energise the landscape, animals return from hibernation, and the ecosystem starts to flourish. It happens slowly, then all at once.

# The experience of snowmelt
But as friends in cooler climates remind us, snowmelt is not a state of beauty and adoration. Instead, it conjures the icy mud that often covers sidewalks and roads, making them challenging to cross. Trudging through snowmelt fills boot tread with sticky ice, rocks, and dirt. It is messy. But with patience in this disorder comes the chance of transformation. From covering and suffocating the ground below, ice moves away. New energy starts to move as ecological cycles begin again. Through it, growth blooms.

Snowmelt, too, is a reminder of our changing climate. Continued snow and ice melt spell disaster for our ecosystems. Permafrost and glacial forms that have stood for human existence are shifting states re-entering the ozone and broader systems. Environments are transforming along different trajectories; be drier, wetter, hotter, and more random. Balances are shifting. Interdependent adaptation is essential to creating new normals in these environments. In confronting this directly, we accept the nature of things we need to work with and manage.

# Change in nature is constant

We see this in the shift over the light of the day, changes in weather and seasonal transitions; they energise and transform landscapes differently.

In these changes, there are numerous changes taking place simultaneously. They interact with and influence each other. While change is constant, an equilibrium ultimately emerges—a temporary steady-state that lasts only until another force induces the ecosystem to adapt again.

Each change in state presents risk and opportunity to different parts of the ecosystem. Embracing change offers the potential to do more with less—to make an outsized impact with the amplification of other actors and forces responding to change. Nature is not naive to these leverage points, and evolution positions particular flora and fauna to rapidly embrace and flourish in new conditions. 

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*Thanks to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dreuharrison/">Dreu Harrison</a> for reflecting on these topics with us. 
Cover image from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/water-droplets-on-blue-surface-7002768/">James Cheney</a>.*

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Snowmelt in nature

Systemic design is an approach developed to help people—designers, practitioners, strategists and others—to better handle uncertain and complex challenges.

While it is considered a broad collection of tools and approaches, systemic design can be most simply understood as an intention to integrate the analytical and descriptive practices of systems thinking with the action-orientation of design. 

The lens of systems thinking is used to map and understand the relationships, dynamics, and tensions at play in a given system, and design is used to ideate and experiment with new frames and system configurations.

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Systemic design blends these practices to understand issues holistically and validate pathways to resolve them.

# What's the benefit?

**Structured learning** 
Systemic design creates a structured learning process, bringing clarity and understanding of what matters. By giving participants a better and shared understanding of context, purpose and their choices, they can move forward with greater confidence. Systemic design provides a reliable process to reduce uncertainty.

**Engaged people** 
Systemic design is humanist in nature, engaging people involved in the change in the process of understanding and shaping it. This ensures their perspectives are captured, synthesised, and the choices are selected that have the highest chance of success. Importantly, the allies that you might need to create change can be brought into the process earlier.

**Improved outcomes** 
As it considers a broad theatre of action, systemic design encourages you to think about consequences and implications across stakeholders and timeframes. In doing so, it minimises unintended consequences when changes are made, and helps avoid creating new problems. Further, it helps you identify opportunities early to maximise your possibilities. For organisations, this leads to saving time, reducing costs and improving outcomes.

# Who is systemic design for?
Systemic design can be helpful for anyone confronted with uncertain and complex situations with decisions to make.

We believe that systemic design is most useful when decisions must be made but there is no clear process. These circumstances can occur when it’s unclear which stakeholders or factors are most influential, or the definition of success is ambiguous. 

Often this occurs at points of transition—when the relationships between an organisation and their context are shifting, and you need to understand a situation holistically. Examples include: 
&#8226; reviewing a business or operating model; 
&#8226; entering a new market; 
&#8226; making investments; or, 
&#8226; introducing a business to new audiences. 

Those leading and building organisations encounter these circumstances more than many others; these include CEOs, founders, executives, and strategic and product disciplines professionals.

# It’s powerful approach to change and build systems
Systemic design has broad application. It is well suited to the complex nature of decision making in contemporary organisations. It’s an approach to problem-solving that is well-aligned with the challenges of a complex, changing world. Some examples include: 

**Identifying the best changes to make** Working at the source rather than the symptom. 
**Putting design choices in perspective** Understanding the dependencies and implications beyond the change. 
**Aligning actors and incentives** Creating shared meaning and purpose in complex environments. 
**Enable a greater awareness of context** Key areas of attention and influence in the system are known upfront. 

Systemic design is already been used across a wide variety of projects at different scales; from helping understand the way a business works through to large scale system transformations such as food systems in healthcare, and shaping entrepreneurial ecosystems.


<hr>



Want to know more about how systemic design actually works? Read <a href="https://snowmelt.io/journal/how-systemic-design-really-works/">here</a>, or see our <a href="https://snowmelt.io/approach/">approach</a> and <a href="https://snowmelt.io/work/">work</a> to see how we use systemic design in strategy.
 
For a broad set of resources on systemic design explore the library of the annual <a target="_blank" href="https://rsdsymposium.org/">Relating Systems Thinking and Design Conference</a>. Also take a look at the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.systemicdesigntoolkit.org/">Systemic Design Toolkit</a> to try out some of the activities in your own projects.

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What is systemic design?

At Snowmelt, we consider systemic design as mindset and process. Rather than rushing into 'solution mode', systemic design moves thinking and conversations *upstream* to understand the potential causes and relevant context of a challenge or situation. This learning is best done in groups that bring a variety of relevant perspectives together. New perspectives create options to address or prevent undesirable situations and clearer pathways toward preferred outcomes. 

It’s a reflective and action-oriented practice of collectively considering questions like:



What’s really going on here? 
How should we define this problem? 
Which relationships are the most important? 
What else do we need to consider? 
How might this situation change over time? 
What are the risks and opportunities? 
What should we do? 
Who do we need to involve in the process of decision making? 
What would have the best chance of success? 
If we take this option, what might be the consequences? 



To answer these valuable context-setting questions, projects can involve a variety of research and detailed engagements with internal and external stakeholders. These can take place in individual interviews or collaborative workshops. For example, it might involve talking to those who will be managing or creating the change in the system, those who are affected by the current configuration of the system, or those who will be affected by the outcome. It is an engaging and collaborative process.

The information gathered is not strictly qualitative or quantitative, as it draws from data and insight from multiple sources to inform the decision and tell the story to those impacted. Knowledge about the challenge is shaped by focused research, those collaborating in the process, or the individuals engaged for their perspective.

To help people think together, systemic design often involves building visual representations of systems. These might be pictures of operating models, ecosystems or value chains. Single, shared frames of reference that can be touched, discussed and changed in conversation are powerful tools to ensure alignment and accelerate decision-making.

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- A stylised example of a system map we use to communicate and talk about a business.

Regardless of the process, outcomes are essential. At Snowmelt, we begin with the end in mind. Firstly, we consider the target outputs such as strategies, frameworks for decision making, process documentation, increases in productivity or changes in perspective. Once defined, we define a program of activities to realise them. 

It is rare to have perfect information, especially at the beginning of a process. Accordingly, systemic design processes are adaptive and change as new information comes to light. Over time, research might reveal a more significant or pressing issue that merits more attention than the original challenge. As new knowledge emerges, it's possible to change the approach in-process to reprioritise the activities to get to the most useful outcomes. Projects can vary greatly in effort and duration, depending on the requirements and ambition of the client or stakeholders involved.

Ultimately, the focus should always be on creating the right artefacts in service of the right goals, rather than the artefacts and goals as initially planned at the beginning of the project.

<hr>



Want to know more about systemic design? We explain it in this <a href="https://snowmelt.io/journal/what-is-systemic-design/">article</a>. See our <a href="https://snowmelt.io/approach/">approach</a> to see how we use it in strategy.
 
For a broad set of resources on systemic design explore the library of the annual <a target="_blank" href="https://rsdsymposium.org/">Relating Systems Thinking and Design Conference</a>. Also take a look at the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.systemicdesigntoolkit.org/">Systemic Design Toolkit</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bispublishers.com/design-journeys-through-complex-systems.html">Design Journeys Through Complex Systems: Practice Tools for Systemic Design</a> to try out some of the activities in your own projects.
 
Cover image: A workshop run by Snowmelt and <a href="https://www.conicgroup.com/">Conic Group</a> at the Relating Systems Thinking and Design conference in Chicago 2019.

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How systemic design really works

Snowmelt represents a change of state—the transition from solid to liquid. For us, it's more than just a name; it describes how we think and work. We found Snowmelt to be a powerful metaphor for what we had been observing: the ability to unlock new value by understanding and creating organisations not as fixed and bounded entities, but as fluid and open processes that connect and adapt to their changing contexts.

# Organisations and change
Organisations and their structures and systems have evolved to meet the needs of an ever more complex society. Many endure well beyond any individual person; like governments, universities, and corporations. In their development, we might assume that we are creating something that will have permanence.

When we think about change, we typically focus on applying effort to these organisations; we define change, seeking then to apply a force to shift the organisation. We define the new solid form it should take, develop a plan to get there, and implement it. In our heads, we might imagine the institution begins as solid and permanent, is briefly in flux, and takes a new solid form as soon as possible.

Of course, the world changes around these institutions and us. The need for change, evolution and adaptation is undeniable. When we zoom out, we might notice the natural cycle of creation and growth towards transformation or dissolution.

# Towards 'liquid' organisation

As enduring and bounded wholes, our institutions developed for and still reflect the problems of the past. They were created for different needs in different cultures are almost always out of step with the present.

If the pace of change is accelerating and its impacts accentuated, then long-running plans and projects face more significant risks. If the world is interconnected and interdependent, decisions to benefit individual entities are unviable. If our environment shifts suddenly, we might not have the resources to sustain us.

As social, technological and environmental changes collide, organisations need to adapt quickly. The value that was created through hierarchies, stable division of labour, linear processes and exchanges now has less utility. These models have now been challenged by the emerging principles of networks, contingent workforces and capabilities, and multidimensional and platform-based exchanges. This transition has been accelerated by the rise of knowledge- and service-based work facilitated through information technology.

Change is no longer discrete—it is perpetual and ephemeral. At some point, the world shifted from complicated to complex, making it impossible to respond to change one piece at a time. As a result, institutions and organisations can't find a new solid form—their demands are too great.

# Finding opportunity in change
If change is constant and the solid, stable, and predictable world is truly behind us, we must learn to embrace the complex liquid world we now inhabit. Adapting to this new, overlapping, fluid world requires more than an iteration of the tools and processes that have proven effective in the past.

To think in these ways requires support. We need new ways to embrace the fast-flowing currents of data, capital, attention and others. We ebb, interdependent with many others and we must be sensitive to their perspectives. Beyond conventional methods, there are new tools and approaches that embrace the complexity of our world. We can use these to reconceive and remake our organisations as we drift—attuned to emerging risks and new opportunities.

Snowmelt has adopted this disposition, and these new tools and approaches are at the core of our practice. We invite you to explore with us.


<hr>



*See our <a href="https://snowmelt.io/approach/">approach</a> and <a href="https://snowmelt.io/work/">work</a> to see what we do.*







*The richness of this metaphor comes from the ideas of many others, including <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_Bauman">Zygmunt Bauman</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskia_Sassen">Saskia Sassen</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour">Bruno Latour</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty">Richard Rorty</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway">Donna Haraway</a>.*







*Additional thanks to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dreuharrison/">Dreu Harrison</a> for reflecting on these topics with us.*

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'Snowmelt' in organisations

The promise of 'network effects' is a mainstay in many startup pitch decks. Often appearing as an explanation for how a platform-based product will grow, businesses dream of the miraculous flywheel effect that pulls in more users as they interact with their product. 


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##### *The often-cited 'Amazon Flywheel'*

This is undoubtedly a great idea to scale the use of products and services efficiently, but problems often occur in the understanding of execution or *how* a 'network effect' can be created.

Over the last few months, I've had several conversations with startups and scaleups about how to build more stickiness into their products and services. While some have been further along the journey than others, they are all trying to build a new system that aims to be picked up by large numbers of customers across many geographic regions. In these conversations, I've found myself referring to the same counterintuitive idea about what it takes to get things moving, that **to build big networks, you need to start building stability and strength at the smallest atomic unit of the network**.

This idea is at the core of Andrew Chen's book *The Cold Start Problem*. As a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and ex-Uber operations executive, Chen has deep experience in observing and understanding network effects. 

Why is starting small to build a network counterintuitive? Networks sound big. You picture mass takeup of your product, so you think of strategies on this scale (e.g., regions, markets, your whole target customer demographic). But, as Chen describes, no 'big bang launch' and ad spend will help if the fundamentals don't work at the smallest viable network scale.

Chen outlines many examples of this observation from many well-known technology businesses. What I found insightful in these examples is the simple truth that some of the most 'scalable' network effects in businesses must be approached in a very focused way. Paying attention to local nuances that may not be obvious to an outsider.

I'll explore this concept through three of Chen's examples, Zoom, Slack, and Uber. Through Chen's examples and some additional reflections, I'll outline why building robust and sticky networks where users must be focused on the smallest viable scale. If these 'atomic' networks are strong, growth will emerge.




# Chen's examples
## Zoom
In the case of Zoom, you might think a whole organisation has to adopt zoom to be sticky, but you simply need two people for the product to work. First, you need a single person to start inviting people to join calls on zoom rather than on another platform. The network can scale quickly once users begin to see the simplicity of connection and the quality of the call. This contrasts with the traditional model of Skype, for example, which by design precluded calls to people that didn't have an account and the app downloaded. Zoom also outperformed in call quality, which made users keep using it. Zoom just worked. It is a shining example of product-led growth, where the product's design drives the network's expansion. For the first two years of its existence, Zoom had no marketing team at all. The strength of the network comes from users who could convert new users through an open system, and once people use it, they keep using it.

## Slack
For the communications platform Slack, you might think it needs to be sold at an enterprise level to be adopted by an organisation. But unlike its incumbent competitors like Microsoft and others, Slack took a different approach. Slack can be adopted by individuals and small project teams with a free tier. Its growth came from small teams using Slack independently of the rest of their firms. A team of two could get benefits using Slack, but with three or more users, the stickiness would multiply. For every person who joins the network that Slack creates gets more valuable, increasing the likelihood of others following. Slack started by getting their friends to try Slack in other silicon valley startups, not by attempting an enterprise sales approach. The strength of the network comes from small teams who became addicted to Slack, pulling new users into their conversations.

## Uber
Uber's ride-sharing success in recent years is astounding. Today they have achieved dominance in many cities. However, contrary to a general understanding, Chen outlines that Uber's victories have not been won at a country or city level but have been won tactically at a street level. It has been their responsive operations team to win over competitors. Uber has been competing against the incumbent networks of taxis, walking, public transport and people driving themselves, and other direct new competitors, Lyft, Didi, etc. The new competitors like Lyft and Didi required the most complex and tactical approaches to overcome them. In this case, the 'hard side' of the network is the limited pool of drivers pulled from different networks. With a swipe on their phone, drivers could switch and take jobs from other rideshare companies. Uber had to ensure that they had drivers working for them and only them as much as possible. They used a range of incentives rolled out in close to real-time to persuade drivers to work with them at critical locations and times. This dynamic would reduce the quality of their competitor's services while increasing theirs. The strength of the network comes from the repeated availability of more uber drivers than competitor drivers at a specific time and location.

# Reflection
Overall, Chen encourages leaders to think through how to increase acquisition, engagement, and retention from their details. If any of these are letting you down, your network effects will be short-lived, or more likely, never eventuate. Every product and service relationship will have a different emphasis across elements of user growth. Rather than architecting the whole and trying to build the 'complete' system at once, focus on smaller 'atomic' networks first. Be specific about how your first networks become stable and grow.



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# A metaphor
I find with systems concepts, there is always a metaphor in nature to bring these ideas to life. This one is quite simple: scattering seeds across an open field gives no certainty that any will germinate. When resources are limited, you need to ensure a higher chance of survival. You need to look for the right places to nurture them when they are in this fragile state. Your efforts are better spent focused on the germination and strength of just a few, giving them the effort in ensuring correct soil, watering, sunlight, clearing weeds, and protection from pests. This combination of resources creates the conditions for the network to begin. Over time these will grow and make the enabling conditions for many others to flourish. 

# So, what does this mean?
The implications of this insight are broad and can impact your product strategies, partnerships, communications and marketing and even recruitment strategies. While the examples above are technology-based, I believe the same patterns apply to any other type of business. Getting a network started from scratch is extremely difficult. Scaling that network effectively is even harder.

Across the Snowmelt client base, each organisation has different approaches to addressing this problem, but I believe that Chen's model is an excellent way to think about what to do next. It's a balance between increasing acquisition, engagement and retention.

Reflecting on Snowmelt as a business, we don't offer a platform-based digital product. Instead, our atomic networks are built with individual clients, their trusted colleagues and friends in their network that they may listen to for guidance. We are continuing to explore how our work can increase the strength of networks around new ideas, strategies and transformations.

<hr>



The idea discussed here is just one of the many that Chen builds on through the book. If you're responsible for products and service growth, I highly recommend Chen's book the <a href= "https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-cold-start-problem-9781847942784">The Cold Start Problem</a> as a way to think through what this might mean for you.
 
Thanks to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dreuharrison/">Dreu Harrison</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/robchanau/">Rob Chan</a> for comments on an earlier draft of this article.
 
Images: Amazon flywheel adapted from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.samseely.com/">Sam Seely</a>. Photos from <a target="_blank" href="https://unsplash.com/@noreiko/">Robert Noreiko</a>

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How to operationalise 'network effects'

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Journal

Featured

Knowing your customers and market holistically will give you more opportunities to find new needs. We give you the methods and insights to get closer to them. We create advocates for this way of thinking and help you integrate it across your organisation.

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Understand a market

Business model design is more than just filling templates: it's a process of continually testing your thinking through many possible options. We accelerate the process of ideation and validation and involve your team and partners in the process.

Design the right business model

Operating models are often hidden, but they create the enabling conditions for a successful organisation. We make operations visible so we can shape each part to improve the performance of the whole.

Create the operating model

You can't control the external market, but organisations can shape them in their favour by creating the right products and offers. We help you create the right processes to validate ideas and make them valuable.

Define products and services

Whether you're building a startup, new venture, or new function of your business, you need to shape the right elements early to give it the best chance of flourishing. We ensure you create them.

Shape

What’s going on outside your organisation needs to be anticipated and pre-empted with a requisite response. We help you to identify what matters externally so you can use it to your advantage.

Find new opportunities

Context changes quickly, and so must your organisation. We can improve your business by aligning people, ideas, technology and structure and giving you the tools to keep them pointed in the same direction.

Ensure strategic fit

To design processes well, you need to think holistically. We help you see the connections and relationships across the component parts and design better processes, ways of working and management systems for your organisation.

Build effective ways of working

Products and service offerings are at the core of all organisations. Planning features and roadmaps with the future in mind leads to more effective and robust propositions.

Define product strategies

As organisations scale, they encounter common challenges as the complexity of teams and operations grows. We help you to codify and structure your work in ways that don't hinder your growth.

Scale

Understanding where you stand is the first step to knowing what is possible. We work with you to map internal systems and understand how things work–see how value 
is created and capability arranged.

Assess the current state

Taking a step back to understand the systems you operate within will help you to build a complete picture of the options available to you. Building your understanding of ecosystems, value chains, operating models and more will help you make better decisions.

Make sense of complexity

Carefully considering the commercial and strategic dynamics upfront means action and investment are aligned with your long-term objectives. We can help strike the right balance between short- and long-term outcomes.

Commercial and strategic design

As organisations grow, they become more robust in some ways but more fragile in others. We help organisations to keep learning and experimenting with new models. By building capability, we reduce fragility and increase your strengths.

Build internal strategic capability

As organisations refine themselves for their market niche, they can lose the ability to understand change. We create the awareness, language, concepts, and processes to help you to engage with a broader context.

Transform

Investors and other enablers are critical audiences in growth and transformation. We help create and narrate compelling stories to help you build new investor relationships, raise capital and report on your progress.

Engage your investors

A strategy is meaningless if it can't be understood by the teams and individuals responsible for implementing it. Connecting long-term outcomes with immediate objectives and activities is critical to realise your strategic ambition. We help to communicate purpose, business model and processes with internal audiences.

Inspire your team with strategy

Helping partners understand your business and its potential can turn them into the allies you need to scale and transform. We can help develop the engagement plan and artefacts required to have the right conversations with investors, regulators, clients and potential purchasers.

Build strategic partnerships

Deliberate exploration of the future can help identify new opportunities and find risks that must be engaged within the present. Storytelling and narrative are critical tools in exploration. We use participatory, imaginative methods to engage with change in the long- term.

Understand future possibilities

Your origin, present and future narratives are powerful ways to engage and build allies that can move with your business. We help you to take a stakeholder and outcome-focused approach.

Featured

How systemic design really works

'Snowmelt' in organisations

What is systemic design?

How systemic design really works

'Snowmelt' in organisations

What is systemic design?

How systemic design really works

'Snowmelt' in organisations

Journal

Sorting:

How to operationalise 'network effects'

'Snowmelt' in organisations

How systemic design really works

What is systemic design?

Snowmelt in nature

Let's talk

Thanks. Is there anything
on your mind?

That's great — Can you
tell us about it?

Thanks for sharing.
We will reach out soon!

Featured

What is systemic design?

How systemic design really works

Journal

Sorting:

How to operationalise 'network effects'

'Snowmelt' in organisations

How systemic design really works

What is systemic design?

Snowmelt in nature

Let's talk

Thanks. Is there anything on your mind?

That's great — Can you tell us about it?

Thanks for sharing. We will reach out soon!

Thanks. Is there anything
on your mind?

That's great — Can you
tell us about it?

Thanks for sharing.
We will reach out soon!