The disposable cup could use a redesign. A reusable solution could save billions of pounds of trash from entering our oceans and landfills. However, this seemingly simple product is deeply embedded in a complex global system, encompassing supply chains, consumer habits, restaurant operations, and waste management infrastructure. Where would you even begin?

Welcome to the world of systems design, where no single change exists in isolation, and every solution must consider the broader context.

In this conversation, IDEO Partner and Managing Director Melanie Bell-Mayeda, who has spent over 20 years working in systems design, shares how to map complex systems, uncover layers of opportunity, and navigate bias with intention.

By the way, that disposable cup challenge? It’s a real project. Get inspired by the insights surfaced in the NextGen Cup pilot.

 

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Systems design explained

Systems, like healthcare and cities, are big, multifaceted, dynamic things built for a purpose. They span several services and products working together in concert. Some systems benefit society, but some can lead to harm too. Melanie cites writer Donella Meadows, who describes systems as made up of structures (institutions), relationships (stakeholders and power dynamics), and paradigms (culture and mindsets). 

Mapping systems is a starting point to learn how to think about systems in order to spot opportunities for change. We hope that bringing more awareness to the process of designing systems encourages people to be more intentional about creating equitable ones and dismantling harmful ones.

Top 3 elements of a systems design project

Melanie outlines three features that define systems design work:

1. Complexity

Systems don’t have one owner, and they’re dynamic and ever-evolving. Contrast this with an organizational change project, where the organization has a CEO and board.

2. Longer time horizon

Systems designers often do their work over 2-4 years, with a time horizon of 5-7 years to see the impact of that work. There are multiple points of intervention in a systems project. “Systems are the work of generations,” Melanie says. “You have to think in broad swaths of time to make an impact.”

3. Partners

To do systems work, Melanie says you have to partner with researchers, corporations, small businesses, communities, and more. Explore what influence partners should and do have and how you can amplify their lived experience. “Communities are a critical part of any systems design—who lives and works there and how you incorporate them into the solutioning process.”

How to identify layers within a system

Melanie uses four core layers to understand a system’s dynamics:

• People – Who is impacted? Who holds or should hold influence?
  

• Policy – What laws, rules, or regulations shape access, behavior, or outcomes?
  

• Market-Based Solutions – What products or services currently address this need? What innovations could emerge?
  

• Narrative – What stories do we tell ourselves (and others) about this system?
  

This layered model, inspired by Lawrence Lessig’s Pathetic Dot Theory, creates a foundation for systems mapping.

An example of systems design in healthcare 

In a project with Upstream, Melanie’s team used these four layers to explore access to birth control. By analyzing policies, provider networks, cultural narratives, and product access, they identified new opportunities, such as pharmacies as a scalable point of care.

People

Narrative 

When the team explored the narrative layer of the reproductive healthcare system, they focused on one story that helped build empathy and understanding for the women they were trying to serve: women often don’t believe they will get pregnant, so it feels unnecessary for them to choose a birth control option that may come with unwanted side effects. Evaluating solutions in this context helped the team think differently about when and how to approach women with options.

Mapping systems to find design opportunities

“To begin to solve for it, you need to be able to see it,” Melanie says of the importance of creating a map of your system. The layers exercise can help you identify the most important pieces of your system and which elements you want to show on your system map. Often, a system is represented as nodes with interconnected lines, like this example of the care system from IDEO’s work with Pivotal Ventures.

While it may look simple, “you could not imagine how many times we drew this map,” Melanie says. The mapping exercise identified starting points where the team could dig deeper in search of potential solutions, as well as establishing a common understanding of the system across the team and their stakeholders. 

With Pivotal, their goal was to better understand the state of caregiving in America. So much of care for children, aging parents, and households is invisible labor. “We needed to make the invisible visible to understand how we solve for this in the context of modern families,” Melanie explains. Once your system map is in place, journey mapping can help you follow one group through the entire system and build empathy for their needs. 

As you begin filling in the pieces of your system through the layers exercise and building your system map, Melanie prompts you to look for three things: 

• Where are there big white space opportunities? 

• Where are the very broken parts of the system today?

• Where are there interesting overlaps where you can start to see solutions potentially emerge?

 

---

“To begin to solve for it, you need to be able to see it.”
Melanie Bell-Mayeda

---

 

With Pivotal, the map helped the team begin to see parts of the existing care system that aren’t working for families today, like school hours not matching working hours and the lack of solutions for caring for aging parents. In the Upstream example, the team began to converge on the pharmacy as a flashpoint, or area of overlap. They realized most people live within five blocks of a pharmacy, so it’s accessible. Many pharmacies are also starting to differentiate by providing medical care, and they take cash, check, Medicaid, and health insurance. Pharmacists know more about drugs than almost anyone else in the medical system. The pharmacy held so many points of intersection between the layers of the system that it felt like an exciting new place to design a solution.

 

Managing bias in systems design

“Acknowledge that you have biases that you might not be aware of,” Melanie says of the best place to start. “And create the space to surface that bias.” Then be intentional about engaging with your biases instead of getting defensive. 

We all bring biases into our work. Designers seek solutions to make people’s lives better, but if we don’t engage around our biases, we limit the impact of our work and at worse, create harm.

At IDEO, Melanie and her team have a moment before kicking off a systems design project where they sit together, bring each of their lived experiences into the room, and think about what influence that might have over the work that they’re about to do.

A step-by-step approach to bias awareness in systems design

Here’s how you can replicate her team’s process:

Step 1: Build awareness of your biases

Ask yourself and your team a few questions to build awareness of the assumptions you’re making as you map out the system you hope to design. Build out more questions specific to the system you’re designing for.

• What comes to mind when you think about this particular context or working with this community?

• Who comes to mind as groups, individuals, or images of folx in this community?

• What are some feelings that come up for you as we head into this work?

(These questions are part of an activity designed by IDEO to help teams build awareness around identity, values, emotions, biases, and assumptions amongst the IDEO project team, our clients, and our users. The activity was originally inspired by the Liberatory Design Cards designed by the Stanford d. School’s K12 Labs and The National Equity Project.)

Step 2: Assess them objectively

As you work to become aware of your biases, call them out so you can see them more objectively. Are they helpful, or not? For example, your biases may be helpful if they enable you to more closely empathize with the experience of the community you’re designing for.

Step 3: Make a plan to navigate your biases

If they're not helpful, how might you get more informed to learn how to navigate them? How might you design with people who can help you to step into their spaces more clearly?

 

---

“Acknowledge that you have biases that you might not be aware of, and create the space to surface that bias.”
Melanie Bell-Mayeda

---

 

“If you can see someone stepping in their bias or operating in their bias,” Melanie explains, “calling in and holding able, which we learned from a group called DEI Works, is this idea that you can acknowledge that it's happening and also recognize that that person is able to work through it in service of a better outcome.”

---