Activating change in complex systems

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About ThinkPlace

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Meet the change makers

How we work

Understand the ThinkPlace way of working
Services
Communication Design

Research & Insights

Education & Capability Building

Scaling & System Change

HCD & Service Design

Social Behaviour Change

Co-Design & Social Innovation

Strategy & Policy Design

Leadership & Culture
Business Transformation

Businesses, governments and non-profits face constant pressure to adapt in a changing world. ThinkPlace is a trusted navigator in the search for a relevant value proposition, compelling products and services, or optimised delivery. We take a holistic view of transformation, seeking effectiveness and efficiency, enriched customer and staff experiences, ethical performance and environmental outcomes. Digitalisation, social and environmental sustainability, and new ways of working are converging into a holistic view of transformation.

Organisation Transformation

Is the way you’re working, working? Big shifts in the workforce in the wake of Covid have intersected with longer term trends towards network structures, agile processes and collaborative innovation the norm. New technologies have changed the affordances for how we work, and spaces, processes, and culture are continually adapting. Meanwhile, trust, clear communication

Communication Design

When it comes to creating strong engagement, it is important to know your audience so you can create a compelling narrative that captures the imagination and builds a shared desire for change. Creating powerful communications and a strong brand is essential to make impact.

Regulatory Design

The rules that govern a society go a long way to determining the quality of that society. With a constantly changing landscape of actors, issues and technology affordances, regulators are under pressure to maintain fit for purpose. ThinkPlace combines methods for risk, human-centred, complex adaptive systems and creativity to help regulators shape and execute policy intent.

Digital Transformation

Digital innovation continually disrupts and reinvents the fundamentals of how things work.

As with all disruptions, digital has created a mix of risk and opportunity that can’t be ignored. When digital innovation is well-connected to societal trends, strategic imperatives and the needs of people and communities, it delivers impact that transforms organisations, changes lives and powers a more sustainable future.

Research & Insights

To best understand a complex problem, we must go directly to the people who are closest to it and who hold the strongest motivation to address it. Our designers bring deep expertise in qualitative and quantitative research to produce profound human insights. Through academic level research in real-world, rapidly-evolving contexts, we generate compelling insights that inform strategic evidence-based decision-making.

Education & Capability

We are living in a highly transitional and disruptive period. The challenges we face are more complex and interconnected than ever. To rise to these challenges, organisations must develop and implement new capabilities, technologies, and ways of working while many face capacity shortages, and widespread cognitive overload. Education providers must rethink curriculums, the student experience, and the value proposition for teachers to remain impactful into future.

Scaled System Change

There’s a lot that urgently needs to change in our world. We need change at scale, not piecemeal efforts. ThinkPlace has been seeking to master design in complex systems for nearly two decades, developing a toolkit for scaled system change that we’ve applied to some of the world’s biggest challenges. We enable exploration of systems through human perspectives, map relationships, constraints and opportunities, and identify viable pathways and initiatives to shift systems over time. Through highly effective brokering of disciplines, rapid sense-making and problem framing, and portfolio of experimentation, we engage ecosystems for change.

HCD & Service Design

We wholeheartedly believe in the principle that those for whom we design must be those with whom we design. As human-centred design (HCD) practitioners, we believe this because we know it works. HCD is a co-creative approach to problem-solving that places the people at the centre of the design process.

Social and Behaviour Change

Many of the challenges we face globally can be traced back to human behaviour, yet it’s not always clear why humans do the things that we do. In fact, scientists estimate that over 90% of behaviour is subconsciously motivated – influenced heavily by context and cognitive biases, and therefore often cannot be explained by logic alone. For this reason, conventional research methods like interviews and focus group discussions are insufficient in uncovering the core, underlying drivers of human behaviour.

ThinkPlace’s social and behaviour change (SBC) practice is committed to transforming human behaviour by deeply understanding what drives behaviour and deploying interventions and tactics that draw on psychology and behavioural economics to shift that behaviour in a constructive, sustainable way.

Innovation

Innovation continually disrupts and reinvents the fundamentals of how things work.

As with all disruptions, digital has created a mix of risk and opportunity that can’t be ignored. When digital innovation is well-connected to societal trends, strategic imperatives and the needs of people and communities, it delivers impact that transforms organisations, changes lives and powers a more sustainable future.

Strategy & Policy Design

The strategy and policy design service develops strategic or policy direction and charts the course towards that direction. A sharp sense of who you are and where you are heading is a powerful tool to give focus and align effort for increased effectiveness.

Leadership & Culture

Around the world governments, consortia, and organisations and assembling teams of highly-talented people to tackle wicked problems in high-pressure environments. Many of these teams fail for complex but preventable reasons.

These highly talented teams and individuals tend to be highly skilled with a clear sense of purpose, and push themselves to limits others simply are unable to achieve. This passion can drive people to keep pushing at this intensity for extended periods of time, especially when faced with a grand challenge, such as those in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Course Guide 2025

Working within complex systems is a necessity for those looking to drive change towards desired outcomes. But the ways we do that can result in unpredictable outcomes when we don’t have a targeted approach or a good sense of how the system might react.

In this course, we provide the conditions to develop your ability to sense and respond to signals within complex systems. You will experiment with approaches, build a more holistic perspective, and think critically about how best to achieve a desired outcome.

Suited to experienced practitioners seeking to better understand the potential impacts of different targeted interventions.

Topics covered include:

• Recapping core complex systems concepts

• Practicing teaching others about concepts

• Deeply exploring the systems you work in/with

• Enriching narratives about our systems using “system dynamics”

• Articulating your vision for the system

• Good and bad uses of system maps

• How to choose, implement, and test targeted interventions for your unique context.

Course details

$1650 excl. GST, with group discounts available

Cost

early bird cost

2 Days

DURATION

max Class size

Auckland, Wellington, and online

location

By arrangement

when

scholarships

Let’s talk

Upcoming Courses

We can conduct these masterclasses for teams within the organisation. They can be conducted online or in-person depending on your needs.
We flexibly deploy this Masterclass based on your needs. Please inquire to learn more.
Register your interest below and one of our friendly team will get in touch to discuss further.

Who we are

Our People

How we work

Business Transformation

Organisation Transformation

Communication Design

Regulatory Design

Digital Transformation

Research & Insights

Education & Capability

Scaled System Change

HCD & Service Design

Social and Behaviour Change

Innovation

Strategy & Policy Design

Leadership & Culture