System Design Toolkit

Who and power (W)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Actants Map. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Actants Map. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: Paired actants (people, buildings, data, law, equipment): each purpose, a shared purpose, value exchange, and experience over time, so non-human things can act as strongly as people.
When to use it: Infrastructure, data or law acts as strongly as people. A people-only map will treat those as scenery.
How to use it: Pick two actants, including at least one that is not a person if that is true of the system.
Write each purpose, then the shared purpose if they have one.
Draw value exchange: what each gives and gets over time.
Write the experience over time, including when the non-human actant blocks or enables.
Add further pairs if needed.
Add the building, data or law that is actually acting if only humans appear.
Who to involve: Invite someone who knows the politics, someone who works with the non-human actant (estates, data or legal), and someone who is not usually invited.
Why it helps: You can then see tools, buildings and law as actors in the system, not as background scenery.
Watch out for: People-only maps hide the buildings, data and law that actually block or enable.

Who and power (W)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Actors Map. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Actors Map. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: Named actors placed on POWER against KNOWLEDGE, with POLICY as a third reading, so you can see who to listen to first.
When to use it: You must decide who to listen to first in a complex system. Titles with no power or knowledge axes will send research to the usual invite list.
How to use it: Draw the POWER and KNOWLEDGE axes and agree what each means in this system.
Place named actors, not titles alone.
Read POLICY across the map: who sets, interprets or is shut out of the rules.
Circle research priorities: high knowledge you have not heard, high power you have not tested.
Mark who is missing from the axes.
Re-place any title cloud until named people sit on real axes.
Who to involve: Invite someone who knows the politics, someone who is not usually invited, and the programme lead.
Why it helps: This helps you decide research priority from power and knowledge, rather than from the usual guest list.
Watch out for: Titles in a cloud with no power or knowledge axes will not set listening priority.

What the work depends on (D)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Adaptive Cycle Strategy. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Adaptive Cycle Strategy. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: C. S. Holling's adaptive cycle: r growth, K conservation, omega release, alpha reorganisation, with CONNECTEDNESS and AVAILABLE CAPITAL, so strategy can include release and renewal as well as growth.
When to use it: The system needs renewal, not only scale-up. Always-on growth with no release will not change form when conservation is stuck.
How to use it: Place the current system on the cycle: growth, conservation, release or reorganisation.
Write connectedness (how rigid the system is) and available capital (what could fuel the next phase).
If you are stuck in conservation, design release: what you will let die.
If you are in release, design reorganisation: what you will protect while it is loose.
Add release and renewal wherever the strategy is only growth.
Put release and renewal into the portfolio with owners, or admit you are only scaling.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the conserved system, and people who would do the work of release and reorganisation.
Why it helps: This helps you decide strategy that can change form through release and renewal, not only scale.
Watch out for: Growth-only strategy leaves stuck conservation without release or renewal.

Who and power (W)
Setting and change (E)

There is no published template for Alliance / treaty / mandate map yet.

What it covers: Legal and treaty duties that already bind what you have been asked to do: what each instrument forbids, requires or funds, written as constraints rather than a reading list.
When to use it: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), statute, inspectorates or funding settlements already bind what you have been asked to do, whether the design team likes it or not.
How to use it: Agree the jurisdiction and time window: which country, which mandate, which years of funding.
List treaties, statutes, inspectorate regimes and funding settlements that apply, using the official name.
For each one, write three lines: what it forbids, what it requires, and what money or access it controls.
Mark which duties you cannot trade away, and which are aspirations the team hoped to treat as optional.
Draw who holds each duty and who can waive or interpret it.
Test what you have been asked to do against those duties and write any breach on the page before anyone tidies it away.
Who to involve: Invite a policy or legal lead who can cite the actual instrument, someone who has been inspected against it, and the programme lead.
Why it helps: You can then keep preferred options inside the legal and treaty constraints that already bind you.
Watch out for: Make sure each policy or treaty says what it forbids, requires or funds. Write the constraints beside each item.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Anti-futures. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for Anti-futures.

What it covers: Futures you must not arrive in, and near-miss failure worlds, written as sharp refusals and guardrails with clear policy implications.
When to use it: You need guardrails as sharp as the vision you want. Storytelling about dystopia without a policy implication will not protect the programme.
How to use it: Assume a forbidden future has already happened and write the world in lived detail.
Include near-misses: worlds you almost slide into.
Reverse each into causes and guardrails you can design in policy, contract, design or stop rules.
Write the guardrails as sharply as the vision: what you will refuse.
Cut any story that has no policy implication.
Put the refusals into what you have been asked to do and the governance.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who would live a forbidden world, and people who would be harmed who can name that world.
Why it helps: This helps you decide what the programme will refuse, with guardrails as sharp as the vision.
Watch out for: Forbidden worlds told as stories without a policy, contract or stop rule protect nobody.

Purpose and value (I)
What the work depends on (D)

Published toolkit page for Backcasting. — This picture is the published GOV.UK Futures Toolkit page for Backcasting.

What it covers: A detailed future state, a reverse path back to today, and present actions plus assumptions to test. Steps that are not yet funded stay on the path as gaps.
When to use it: Forward forecasts keep locking you into today's limits. You need present actions derived from the future you want, including work that is not already in the budget.
How to use it: Describe the future in enough detail that you can walk backwards from it.
Step backwards: what would have to be true just before that, then before that, until today.
Convert each step into present actions and assumptions to test.
Include steps that are not already funded and mark them as gaps.
Keep uncomfortable or unfunded steps on the path rather than dropping them.
Hand present actions to owners, including the ones that sit outside today's budget.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who would take a present action outside the current budget, and finance to hear the gaps.
Why it helps: This helps you decide present work from the future you want, including unfunded steps, rather than only reversing today's budget lines.
Watch out for: Make sure the reverse path includes steps that are not already funded. Easy, budgeted steps alone will not get you there.

There is no published template for C4 Context diagram yet.

What it covers: One box for the system in focus, with users and external systems around it. In the C4 model (Context, Containers, Components, Code), this is the context view only.
When to use it: Engineers and policy need a one-page boundary they can share, and the team is jumping to internals before the context is agreed.
How to use it: Name the system in focus in one box; if you cannot name it, you are not ready for this view.
Place people and organisations who use it around the box, with what they do.
Place external systems it depends on or feeds, with the relationship labelled.
Agree what is inside the box and what is out of scope, and write the exclusions.
Stop at context; do not draw containers or components on this page.
Confirm that policy and engineering point at the same box; if they do not, you have two systems.
Who to involve: Invite an engineer who will own the internals later, a policy or service owner, and someone who represents an external system.
Why it helps: This helps engineers and policy point at the same system before anyone draws containers.
Watch out for: Make sure the context boundary is agreed before anyone draws containers and components. Otherwise engineers and policy will draw different systems.

What the work depends on (D)

There is no published template for Causal loop / systems map yet.

What it covers: Variables linked in reinforcing (R) and balancing (B) loops, with delays marked, so you can see how a fix might worsen the problem later.
When to use it: A new building or programme could make the problem worse, and opinion-drawn loops would hide the delays that matter.
How to use it: Name the problem variable in the centre (for example waiting time, trust, occupancy, harm).
Add other variables that move it, and connect them with arrows that say up or down.
Find reinforcing loops (things that feed themselves) and balancing loops (things that push back), and label them R or B.
Mark delays: where the effect shows up later than the action.
For each loop, write the evidence, and mark opinion-only loops as hypotheses.
Test the proposed building or programme on the map: which loops it strengthens, which it ignores, and whether it could worsen the problem it claims to solve.
Who to involve: Invite someone with data or history of the problem, someone who lives the delay, and someone who owns the proposed intervention.
Why it helps: You can then test a building as a system intervention, using evidenced loops and delays rather than assuming it is a solution.
Watch out for: Make sure loops have evidence and time delays. Opinion-only loops cannot show whether a new building would worsen the problem.

Who and power (W)

There is no published template for Civic publics canvas yet.

What it covers: The groups that form around an issue: who gathers, who argues, and who stays away, rather than a single user of a building.
When to use it: People disagree about who the building is for, or the team is talking about the community as if it were one person.
How to use it: Name the issue that people are forming around, in words they would use, not the project's title.
List the groups of people that gather around that issue, including opponents and people who will never use the building.
For each public, write what they want, what they fear, and how they currently make themselves heard.
Mark where those groups overlap and where they cannot share a room without a rule for disagreement.
Replace any box labelled the community with the specific public you mean.
Write what the work must do for more than one group, and what it must stop treating as a single audience.
Who to involve: Invite people from at least two groups who do not already agree, a place lead, and the sponsor.
Why it helps: You can then write what you have been asked to do for competing groups in the open, instead of pretending there is one community to design for.
Watch out for: Make sure contested groups, opponents and people who will never use the building stay visible. One persona labelled The Community hides them.

Who and power (W)
Purpose and value (I)

There is no published template for Community asset / ABCD map yet.

What it covers: A place map of what already exists: people and their skills, associations, and physical assets, plus who can use them and who trusts them. Asset-based community development (ABCD) is the method behind the map.
When to use it: A new public building is being discussed, and you need to know what already works so the scheme does not duplicate or displace it.
How to use it: Agree the place boundary on a map people recognise, not a local-authority outline nobody uses on the ground.
List people and skills, associations and groups, and physical assets, using names rather than categories.
For each asset, note who can use it, who owns it, when it is open, and whether it is trusted.
Mark what residents already rely on, including unofficial routes that never appear in a directory.
Compare the proposed scheme with the map and strike anything that would copy, starve or replace an asset that already works.
Agree what to build on, what to fund as is, and what the new building must not pretend to replace.
Who to involve: Invite residents or other people with lived experience of the place, people who run existing groups, and the sponsor who asked for the work.
Why it helps: This helps you decide what the place already has and what a new building would duplicate, so the project can build on the place.
Watch out for: Make sure the map records who can use each asset, who owns it, and whether it is trusted. Names of buildings and groups alone are not enough.

Setting and change (E)

This picture is the printable A3 template for Cynefin.

What it covers: The Cynefin domains: clear, complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder in the middle. You place the problem, not the organisation's personality.
When to use it: People are writing a specification for a civic problem that is still complex, as if the right answer could be written up front.
How to use it: Explain the domains in plain language: clear (best practice), complicated (experts can analyse), complex (patterns only in retrospect), chaotic (act to stop the bleeding).
Place this problem, not the whole organisation; a building programme can be complicated while the social problem is complex.
Treat disagreement as data: the problem may sit in disorder until you probe.
Write the allowed moves for that domain (for complex: probe, sense, respond).
Strike any A-to-Z plan that treats a complex problem as complicated.
Agree what you will learn before you freeze the specification.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, people affected by it, and someone who has seen a complicated specification fail on a complex problem.
Why it helps: This helps you match the way of working to the domain the problem sits in, so a complex civic issue is not forced into a complicated A-to-Z plan.
Watch out for: Make sure a complex civic problem is not forced into a complicated A to Z specification. The plan should not pretend the right answer can be written up front.

Who and power (W)
Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Delphi. — This picture is the published GOV.UK Futures Toolkit page for Delphi.

What it covers: Expert rounds, what moved towards consensus, what stayed in disagreement, and inputs to an Issues Paper, before anyone workshops options together.
When to use it: You need structured expert judgement before options harden, and a group workshop would average away the minority view that later proves right.
How to use it: Invite experts to answer independently first; do not start in a shared workshop.
Run at least two rounds and show the group the spread, not only the average.
Protect minority views in writing so they go into the Issues Paper.
Write the Issues Paper before any group workshop, with consensus and dissent both visible.
Bring people together only then, using the paper as the agenda.
Restore minority lines if rounds have averaged away dissent.
Who to involve: Invite senior decision-makers, domain experts who will answer independently, and a facilitator who will protect minority views.
Why it helps: This helps you structure expert judgement in an Issues Paper that keeps disagreement visible, before options harden in a workshop.
Watch out for: Make sure minority views stay in the Issues Paper. Rounds that average dissent into a false consensus hide the view that later proves right.

What the work depends on (D)
Setting and change (E)

There is no published template for Digital public infrastructure map yet.

What it covers: The civic rails the service sits on: identity, payments, data and registries, not the app on top. Digital public infrastructure (DPI) is the usual name for those rails.
When to use it: The building is one channel of a digital and physical service, and the team is reaching for an app before the rails exist.
How to use it: Name the service journeys that must work in the building and online.
Under them, map identity, payments, data stores and registries those journeys sit on, using the real system names.
Mark who owns each rail, who can access it, and what happens when it is down.
Draw the building as a channel on those rails, not as a separate product.
List gaps: no shared identity, no payments, no register, no fallback when digital fails.
Name the rails and the fallback in the building before you specify an app.
Who to involve: Invite a digital architecture or Government Digital Service (GDS) literate lead, an operator of a desk channel, and someone who owns a register or identity service.
Why it helps: This helps you treat the building as a channel on identity, payments and registries, rather than as an app sitting on nothing.
Watch out for: Make sure identity, payments, registries and a fallback when digital fails are named before the answer becomes an app.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

This picture is the printable A3 template for Doughnut / climate-risk canvas.

What it covers: The doughnut: social foundation inside, ecological ceiling outside, and the safe and just space between, plus physical climate risk to this site over its life.
When to use it: A civic asset meant to last about 60 years is being specified, and net zero is at risk of becoming a plaque rather than use, energy and maintenance.
How to use it: Draw the doughnut and fill social foundation shortfalls this asset could worsen or repair (housing, health, voice, energy, and the rest that apply).
Fill ecological ceiling overshoots: carbon, heat, water, materials, biodiversity on and beyond the site.
Add physical climate risk to this site: flood, heat, wind, over the life of the asset, not only opening year.
Translate each ring into specification: use, energy, maintenance, adaptation.
Write what is missing in operations if net zero is only a plaque.
Give social foundation and climate risk owners in the project before you freeze what you have been asked to do.
Who to involve: Invite a climate or energy specialist, someone who will maintain the building, and people whose social foundation is at stake.
Why it helps: You can then write social foundation and ecological ceiling into the specification for use, energy and maintenance, not as a plaque on the building.
Watch out for: Make sure net zero appears as use, energy and maintenance over sixty years. Climate and social limits that stay off the specification will not constrain what you have been asked to do.

What the work depends on (D)
Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Driver mapping. — This picture is the published GOV.UK Futures Toolkit page for Driver mapping.

What it covers: Drivers plotted on importance against certainty, then the critical uncertainties circled so they can become scenario axes.
When to use it: You must choose axes for scenarios or stress tests, and everything is at risk of being plotted as high importance and low certainty.
How to use it: List drivers from the scan and from the Issues Paper, one driver per card.
Plot them on two axes: importance, and how certain you are.
Circle critical uncertainties: important and uncertain.
Agree which two become scenario axes; they must be independent.
Put important-and-certain drivers on a watch list with owners, not on the axes.
Force some drivers down if everything sits in the uncertain-important corner.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who will live with the result, and someone who can defend certainty from data rather than volume of voice.
Why it helps: You can then choose critical uncertainties as scenario axes, so scenarios are not built from the loudest trend.
Watch out for: Make sure some drivers are allowed to be known. If everything sits in high importance and low certainty, scenario axes cannot be chosen.

Who and power (W)
What the work depends on (D)

There is no published template for Ecosystem / value-network map yet.

What it covers: A network of actors with flows between them: value, data, money, people and waste, plus the points where those flows fail.
When to use it: You have a stakeholder list or a cluster of logos, and you need the system: what actually moves, and where it breaks.
How to use it: Agree the boundary of the network and the question it answers (who captures value, where data dies, where waste goes).
Place named actors, then draw flows of value, data, money, people and waste, labelling each arrow with what moves.
Mark direction and whether the flow is formal, unofficial or broken.
Circle failure points: delays, leaks, gatekeepers, unpaid work.
Add a flow or remove any node that has none.
Write the two or three interventions that would change a flow.
Who to involve: Invite someone who sees money, someone who sees data or casework, someone who sees the unofficial routes, and a person affected by a failure point.
Why it helps: You can then target how the system behaves, using flows and failure points rather than a prettier cluster of logos.
Watch out for: Make sure every important node has labelled flows and failure points. Pretty nodes alone do not show how the system behaves.

Who and power (W)
What the work depends on (D)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Ecosystem Governance. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Ecosystem Governance. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: Nested rings of GLOBAL, COMMUNITIES or CONSTELLATIONS, RESOURCE NETWORK, COORDINATING INFRASTRUCTURE, MISSION PARTNERS and WORKING GROUP, each with authority and resources across organisations that share a transition.
When to use it: No single organisation can own the transition. A steering group with no authority or resources will only be a meeting.
How to use it: Place the working group, mission partners, coordinating infrastructure, resource network, communities and the widest ring.
For each ring, write authority: what they can decide, and resources: what they can spend or withhold.
Write how rings talk, and what happens when they disagree.
Give duty to any steering group that has none, or remove it.
Name who is not in a ring and how they are still bound.
Confirm the transition is owned across organisations in practice, not by one body on paper alone.
Who to involve: Invite people from more than one organisation who would sit in different rings, people from policy, and people from communities in the constellation.
Why it helps: This helps you set governance as duty across organisations, with authority and resources on each ring.
Watch out for: A steering group that is only a meeting cannot govern a shared transition.

Purpose and value (I)

Published toolkit page for Five-star futures. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for Five-star futures.

What it covers: One future staged from a 1-star minimum you would still accept, through a 3-star plausible middle, to a 5-star stretch, each star a testable state you could check.
When to use it: Success must be staged, not binary. Adjectives such as better or thriving will not tell you what to invest in first.
How to use it: Pick one seed and write 1 star as the least you would still call success.
Write 3 stars as a plausible middle you could actually run.
Write 5 stars as a stretch that is still the same future, not a different fantasy.
Fill 2 and 4 as steps between, each testable.
Rewrite any star that is only an adjective into a state you could check.
Use the stars to stage investment, not to decorate a slide.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who would have to run the 1-star floor, and finance to hear what 5 stars would cost.
Why it helps: Investment can then be staged against testable states from minimum to stretch.
Watch out for: Make sure each star is a state you could check. Adjectives alone cannot stage investment.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Future State Scenarios. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Future State Scenarios. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: TIME HORIZON and GEOGRAPHICAL SCOPE, then at least two scenarios with SCENARIO DIMENSIONS, so interventions are tested against more than one system future.
When to use it: Interventions must be tested against several system futures. One preferred state sold as scenarios will not stress-test the design.
How to use it: Set the time horizon and the geographical scope and write them down.
Agree scenario dimensions: the uncertainties that actually split the futures.
Write at least two scenarios as system states, not as one plan in two costumes.
Test the intervention in each: fits, fails, or needs a different design.
Rewrite any straw-man scenario until it is a world you might actually get.
Hold off picking a favourite until the intervention has been through all the states.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, and at least one operator who would have to run the intervention in the unloved scenario.
Why it helps: This helps you decide whether an intervention survives plural system futures, not only the favoured one.
Watch out for: One favoured state dressed as two scenarios will not stress-test the intervention.

What the work depends on (D)
Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Futures Wheels. — This picture is the published GOV.UK Futures Toolkit page for Futures Wheels.

What it covers: A wheel: a change in the centre, then first-order, second-order and third-order impacts pushed outward until the consequences feel uncomfortable.
When to use it: You must chase consequences beyond the obvious first hit, and the room is at risk of stopping at comfortable first-order effects.
How to use it: Place the change or event in the centre.
Push first-order impacts out in a ring, then second-order from those, then third.
Keep going until someone is uncomfortable; that is usually the useful ring.
Mark which impacts would change the policy if they were believed.
Push past first-order effects that feel like a press release.
Take the uncomfortable consequences into stress-testing or the Issues Paper.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who would live a second-order impact, and someone who will say the uncomfortable consequence out loud.
Why it helps: You can then commit policy with second- and third-order consequences on the page, not only on the strength of a comfortable first hit.
Watch out for: Make sure second- and third-order impacts that would change the policy get chased. Stopping at comfortable first-order effects is not enough.

Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Horizon scanning. — This picture is the published GOV.UK Futures Toolkit page for Horizon scanning.

What it covers: Weak signals and scan cards grouped by STEEP domain (social, technological, economic, environmental and political), used as early warning rather than a recap of the news.
When to use it: You need early warning, not a settled trend list, and the scan is at risk of covering only what already appears in the news.
How to use it: Scan each STEEP domain and capture weak signals as cards, one signal per card, with a source.
Include things that are not yet in the news.
Group cards and keep only those that would change a live decision if they grew.
Write who will watch each keeper, and what would trigger a briefing.
Refuse to present a recap of last week's headlines as a scan.
Feed keepers into driver mapping or an Issues Paper.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts who can source weak signals, and at least one operator who will live with the result.
Why it helps: This helps you treat horizon scanning as early warning, with weak-signal cards that can change a live decision.
Watch out for: Make sure the scan includes weak signals that are not yet in the news. Covering only headlines is not early warning.

What the work depends on (D)
Setting and change (E)

There is no published template for Industrial / supply-base map yet.

What it covers: Who can actually build, staff, maintain and regulate: docks, yards, skills, workforce and inspectors, not only demand.
When to use it: Capacity, not demand, is the binding constraint, and a needs analysis would send you to ask for something the supply base cannot deliver.
How to use it: State the demand you think you have, then put it to one side.
Map who can build, staff, maintain and regulate in the time window you have.
Include docks, yards, factories, training pipelines, and the inspectorates that sign work off.
Mark bottlenecks: lead times, scarce skills, single suppliers, security clearances.
Write what you would have to grow, buy abroad, or stop promising.
Rewrite what you have been asked to do against capacity, and fill the yards before you treat a detailed demand map as finished.
Who to involve: Invite people who run yards, workforce or regulation, plus a commercial lead.
Why it helps: You can then set what you have been asked to do against docks, yards and workforce, so you do not specify a programme the supply base cannot staff or build.
Watch out for: Make sure docks, yards, skills and workforce are mapped in as much detail as demand. Capacity is usually the binding constraint.

Who and power (W)
What the work depends on (D)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Influence Map. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Influence Map. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: Five levels from strategic outcomes through highly influenced, inter-influencing and influences to deepest influences, with arrows whose strength and direction you can defend.
When to use it: Power and interest grids are too thin for systemic influence. Arrows everywhere with no honest strength will not show leverage.
How to use it: Write level 1 strategic outcomes you care about.
Place factors and actors on levels 2 to 5 by how they influence those outcomes.
Draw arrows with direction and strength you can defend: weak, medium or strong.
Remove arrows you cannot defend.
Circle the deepest influences you can actually work with.
Add strength to every remaining arrow before you act.
Who to involve: Invite someone who knows the politics, someone who is not usually invited, the programme lead, and people who live the deepest influences.
Why it helps: This helps you work at a depth a power-interest grid cannot show, using influence with honest strength.
Watch out for: Arrows drawn everywhere without defensible strength hide where leverage really sits.

Purpose and value (I)
What the work depends on (D)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Intervention Strategy. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Intervention Strategy. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: A strip of places to intervene in the spirit of Donella Meadows: parameters, buffers and flows, physical delays, balancing and reinforcing feedback, information flows, rules, self-organisation, goals, paradigms, and transcending paradigms.
When to use it: You know the system but not where or how to intervene. A pile of extra projects at every depth is not yet a coherent strategy.
How to use it: Restate the system behaviour you are trying to shift.
Walk the strip from parameters up to paradigms and ask whether you are actually intervening there.
Mark shallow interventions (numbers, buffers) and deep ones (goals, paradigms).
Choose a coherent set rather than one more project at every depth.
Write why this set is the place to intervene in this system.
Cut until the set coheres if the strategy is still a pile of extra projects.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, people affected by it, and someone who can stop a shallow parameter tweak being sold as paradigm change.
Why it helps: You can then intervene at coherent places with real leverage, instead of adding projects at every depth.
Watch out for: Make sure the set of interventions coheres and names its leverage. A pile of extra projects is not strategy.

Who and power (W)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Iterative Inquiry. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Iterative Inquiry. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: A nested cross across MACRO, EXO, MESO and MICRO levels, asking PROCESS, CONTEXT or PURPOSE, STRUCTURE and FUNCTION at each pass so the system boundary improves as a guess.
When to use it: The system boundary keeps shifting as you learn. Treating the first framing as final truth will freeze the wrong people and things in or out.
How to use it: Write the issue in one sentence, then guess where the system starts and ends.
Walk MACRO, EXO, MESO and MICRO and note what is true at each nested level.
At each level, ask PROCESS, CONTEXT or PURPOSE, STRUCTURE and FUNCTION.
Reframe the issue, update the boundary, and do another pass.
Keep earlier passes visible so you can see what moved.
Stop only when another pass would not change who or what is in the system.
Who to involve: Invite people who see different levels: policy at MACRO, teams at MESO, and lived experience at MICRO.
Why it helps: You can then work from a boundary that has been reframed more than once, not from a first-pass freeze.
Watch out for: Make sure you run more than one framing pass. A single pass treated as final locks the wrong boundary.

Who and power (W)
Purpose and value (I)

There is no published template for Jobs-to-be-done landscape yet.

What it covers: A landscape of the progress people are already trying to make in this part of life, not a list of rooms or service brands.
When to use it: Uses are still open, for example library, hub, clinic, or none, and the team is inventing jobs for a building instead of finding jobs people already have.
How to use it: Name the life domain in words people use (getting a child looked after, proving identity, staying warm), not the building type.
From evidence, write the jobs people are already hiring places, services or workarounds to do.
Group neighbouring jobs so you can see what sits next to what, including jobs a civic building should not take on.
Mark which jobs are underserved, which are already well served locally, and which are invented by the design team.
Strike invented jobs and keep only those you can source from interviews, observation or administrative data.
Agree a shortlist of jobs the project may serve, and a list of uses you will not pretend to cover.
Who to involve: Invite people who live the life domain, a researcher with field notes, and someone who can change what the project has been asked to do.
Why it helps: This helps you start from progress people already seek, rather than from a preferred building type.
Watch out for: Make sure jobs come from interviews, observation or data. Jobs invented around a workshop table will not hold.

Who and power (W)

This picture is the printable A3 template for Mendelow power–interest grid.

What it covers: A two-by-two grid of power against interest. The four boxes are manage closely, keep satisfied, keep informed, and monitor.
When to use it: You have more stakeholders than hours, and you must decide who gets a meeting, a letter, or ongoing contact.
How to use it: Draw two axes: power (how much they can direct or block the work) and interest (how much the work affects them).
Label the four boxes: manage closely, keep satisfied, keep informed, and monitor.
List stakeholder groups by asking who is affected, who is accountable, who can decide, and who can obstruct.
Place each named actor on the grid together as a group.
For each box, write a specific action: who is told what, who is consulted about what, and who owns that contact.
Review the keep-informed and monitor boxes for people who can still stop the work through politics, protest or the press, and move them if the placement is polite rather than true.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, people affected by it, and someone who knows the press and local politics.
Why it helps: You can then staff an engagement plan: who to involve, who to inform, who to keep close, and who to watch.
Watch out for: Make sure citizens are not parked in the low-power, inform-only box only because they are not present. People who can stop a scheme through politics, protest or the press still belong on the grid.

Purpose and value (I)

There is no published template for Mission canvas yet.

What it covers: A societal mission, the sectors it must mobilise, and the portfolio of interventions, of which a site is only one instrument.
When to use it: The site is being asked to carry a societal job it cannot do alone, and you need to see the rest of the portfolio.
How to use it: Write the mission as a time-bound societal outcome, not a slogan for the building.
List the sectors that must move for the mission to be real: public, private, civic, research or others.
Under each sector, write what it would have to start, stop or fund.
Sketch the portfolio of interventions and place this site as one card in that portfolio.
Name the money, mandates and measures that sit above the site.
Write it down if the mission has no portfolio behind it, and stop treating the site as a substitute.
Who to involve: Invite a policy lead who owns the mission, people from at least two sectors that would have to move, and the site sponsor.
Why it helps: You can then place the site in a portfolio instead of dumping a societal mission onto one building as a slogan.
Watch out for: Make sure the mission has a portfolio of interventions, sectors and money behind it. A slogan alone leaves the site carrying a job it cannot do.

Who and power (W)

There is no published template for Mitchell salience model yet.

What it covers: Three overlapping sets: power, legitimacy and urgency. The overlaps show who is quiet, who is noisy, and who is risky to ignore.
When to use it: A quiet actor can still stop the building or the service, and a power–interest grid would hide them because they are not making a fuss today.
How to use it: Draw three overlapping circles labelled power, legitimacy and urgency, and agree what each word means on this project.
List actors who have power (they can compel), legitimacy (their claim is seen as proper), or urgency (they will not wait).
Place each actor in the right overlap, including dormant actors who have power and legitimacy but are quiet today.
Name the risky combinations: power plus urgency with weak legitimacy, and legitimacy plus urgency with little formal power.
Write who you will watch, who you will bring in, and who you will not surprise later.
Add quiet actors before you treat the map as finished if it only contains people who showed up today.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, and someone who remembers when a quiet inspector, landowner or community group halted similar work.
Why it helps: This helps you see quiet actors who can still stop the work, and name noisy actors whose claim is weaker than they think.
Watch out for: Make sure quiet actors with power, legitimacy or urgency appear on the map, even if they did not attend the workshop.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Motivations. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for Motivations.

What it covers: Trends and forces driving change in this arena: the why behind actors' moves, each tied to a decision you have to make.
When to use it: You know who the actors are but not what drives them. Trends that do not change a decision are wallpaper.
How to use it: For each important actor, write what is driving them in this arena.
Add trends and forces that would change those drives.
Link each force to a decision you have to make.
Strike trends that do not change a decision.
Cut until every surviving force changes something you will do next.
Carry the surviving motivations into scenarios or offers.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who will live with the result, and someone who can speak for an actor's real incentive.
Why it helps: You can then act on forces that change a decision, instead of collecting trends that never alter the next step.
Watch out for: Trends with no link to a decision stay as wallpaper and never change the next step.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Multicapitals Model. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Multicapitals Model. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: An eight-sector octagon around CORE: natural, financial, manufactured, human, social, cultural, political and digital capitals, each with stocks, flows and stewards.
When to use it: Value is being reduced to money alone. Labelling capitals without stocks, flows or stewards will not change which interventions you choose.
How to use it: Write the CORE: what this system exists to keep going, in one sentence.
Fill all eight sectors around it, including digital and political.
For each capital, write stock (what there is), flow (what moves), and steward (who looks after it).
Mark where an intervention would grow one capital by spending another.
Choose interventions using the octagon, not after the choice is already made.
Revisit any capital that was labelled and then ignored in the choice.
Who to involve: Invite people who steward different capitals (finance, community, ecology, data, culture) and people from policy.
Why it helps: Interventions can be chosen with value beyond money in the decision, not only on a poster afterwards.
Watch out for: Make sure each capital has stock, flow and steward before you choose. Labels alone leave money-only logic in place.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Niche Discovery. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Niche Discovery. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: A KEY CHARACTERISTIC, then three grassroots initiatives compared against it, and the protection a chosen niche needs so it is a starting place for transition, not every pilot renamed.
When to use it: System-wide change needs a protected starting place. Calling every pilot a niche removes selection logic.
How to use it: Write the key characteristic a niche would need in this system: protection, difference, room to learn.
Find grassroots initiatives that already show that characteristic.
Put three on the page and compare them against the characteristic, not against who shouted.
Choose one or none, and write why the others are ordinary projects.
Write what protection the chosen niche needs: rules, money, time, permission to fail.
Remove any pilot that does not meet the characteristic.
Who to involve: Invite people who run grassroots initiatives, someone who can grant protection, and people from policy who might crush a niche by scaling it too soon.
Why it helps: This helps you choose one protected starting place for transition, with clear reasons the others are not niches.
Watch out for: Renaming every pilot a niche leaves no protected starting place for transition.

Purpose and value (I)

Published toolkit page for North stars. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for North stars.

What it covers: One directional beacon amalgamated from the futures you will pursue, sharp enough to constrain trade-offs and say what you refuse.
When to use it: Many futures need collapsing into one guiding picture. A slogan that never says no will not help live trade-offs.
How to use it: Bring the futures you are willing to amalgamate, and keep the refused ones visible.
Write one directional picture: what you steer towards.
Write what the beacon forces you to refuse.
Test a live trade-off against it and rewrite if it cannot constrain the choice.
Keep it short enough to use in decisions and specific enough to bite.
Start again if the beacon still never says no.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who will live with a refused option, and decision-makers who will own the refusals.
Why it helps: Live trade-offs can be decided against a beacon that refuses options, not only inspires.
Watch out for: Make sure the north star can constrain a live trade-off. A slogan that never refuses is not enough.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Paradoxing. — This picture is the nearest official Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Paradoxing. The Design Journeys pack has no dedicated page for this canvas, so the closest published sheet is shown.

What it covers: POLE A, TENSION, POLE B and a HOLDING PRACTICE: opposing truths the transition must navigate, with a practice for staying with both and a design consequence.
When to use it: Either/or framing is blocking transition design. Listing paradoxes with no design consequence will not change buildings, services or policy.
How to use it: Name pole A and pole B as truths that both hold, not as a problem and a solution.
Write the tension: what goes wrong if you pick only one pole.
Design a holding practice: how the organisation will stay with both through cadence, roles or rules.
Write the design consequence: what the building, service or policy must do because both poles are true.
Add a holding practice wherever you only have a clever observation.
Put the holding practice into governance, not into a workshop insight slide.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, people who live each pole, and a facilitator who can stop either/or collapse.
Why it helps: This helps you constrain the transition with a holding practice and a design consequence, not clever labels alone.
Watch out for: Paradox labels without a holding practice and design consequence stay as observations.

Setting and change (E)

This picture is the printable A3 template for PESTLE / STEEPLED.

What it covers: A scan of forces: political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental, plus ethics and demography when you use STEEPLED. Each force is a card that might change a live decision.
When to use it: You are scanning the field before locking what you have been asked to do, and you need early forces, not a wallpaper of headings.
How to use it: Write the live decision at the top, so the scan has somewhere to land.
Give each domain a column: political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental, plus ethics and demography if you are using STEEPLED.
Capture weak signals as cards, one force per card, with a source.
Group cards and keep only those that would change the live decision if they grew.
For each keeper, write what you will watch, who owns the watch, and what would trigger a change to what you have been asked to do.
Change the decision or what you have been asked to do if the wall is full but nothing has moved; otherwise the scan has not done its job.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts who can source signals, and at least one operator who will live with the result.
Why it helps: You can then act on a short list of forces that change a live decision, each with a watch owner.
Watch out for: Make sure every kept force hits a live decision with a watch owner. A full wall of headings is not enough on its own.

Official Place Standard compass worksheet. — This picture is the official Place Standard compass from Public Health Scotland, the Scottish Government and Architecture and Design Scotland. You score 14 themes from 1 to 7 and plot them on the wheel.

What it covers: The 14 Place Standard themes for a named place, including moving around, facilities, identity, influence and feeling safe, scored with comments rather than a spider diagram for a drawer.
When to use it: A public building must answer a real place, and an abstract user persona would skip streets, influence and safety.
How to use it: Agree which place you are scoring, on a map residents use.
Walk the 14 themes, and for each one score and write why, in people's own words.
Keep disagreement visible: do not average a street that feels safe to one group and unsafe to another.
Record the spider only after the comments exist; the comments are the design ask, not the shape.
Translate each low or contested theme into a requirement the building or service must answer.
Read the drafted ask against the scores and rewrite anything that ignores them.
Who to involve: Invite residents who live the themes, including people who feel unsafe or unheard, plus place leads and the sponsor.
Why it helps: This helps you specify the building against scored themes and comments from the place, rather than against an abstract user.
Watch out for: Make sure what you have been asked to do answers the scored themes and comments. A spider diagram that is ignored later leaves the building answering the wrong thing.

Purpose and value (I)
What the work depends on (D)

There is no published template for Platform / multi-sided canvas yet.

What it covers: Each side of the platform, how the first users arrive on each side (the chicken-and-egg problem), and who governs the rules.
When to use it: The civic building is being called a hub, and you need to know who delivers through it, how each side shows up, and who sets the rules.
How to use it: Name the sides of the platform (for example residents, providers, commissioners, data users); one nickname such as hub is not a side.
For each side, write what they give, what they get, and why they would stay.
Write the chicken-and-egg problem: who must arrive first, and what you will do when one side is empty.
Name who governs membership, data, fees, hours and disputes.
Mark what the building does as infrastructure, and what others must do as tenants or partners.
Name sides, first users and a governor before you call it a platform.
Who to involve: Invite someone from at least two sides, a person who would govern the rules, and someone who has run a similar chicken-and-egg problem.
Why it helps: This helps you turn a hub into a platform others can actually deliver through, with named sides, a first-user problem, and a governor.
Watch out for: Make sure the sides, the chicken-and-egg problem, and who governs are named before the building is called a hub.

Who and power (W)
Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Playground. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for Playground.

What it covers: Pace layers in an arena: experiments and fashion, commerce, infrastructure, governance, and nature or deep structure. Actors and offers sit on the layer they actually move at.
When to use it: You must see who moves fast and what stays sticky in this arena. Treating every competitor as one speed will hide stickiness.
How to use it: Name the playground as the arena, not the organisation.
Fill layers that change at different speeds: experiments, commerce, infrastructure, governance, deep structure.
Place actors and offers on the layer they actually move at.
Mark what is sticky in the slow layers and what can flip in the fast ones.
Separate competitors that move at different speeds instead of averaging them.
Write which layer your intervention sits on, and which slower layers will resist it.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts who know the arena, someone from a fast experiment, and someone from a slow institution.
Why it helps: You can then place your intervention on the right pace layer and see which sticky layers will resist it.
Watch out for: Competitors given one shared speed hide stickiness in the slow layers.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

There is no published template for Power of 10+ yet.

What it covers: Reasons people would come to a place, and reasons they would stay. Destinations sit inside larger places, and uses overlap.
When to use it: Use this when you are planning what happens in a public place with more than one use.
How to use it: Name the place at more than one scale: seat, room, building, street, district.
At each scale, list destinations people would come for.
Nest each destination at the right scale.
Find three reasons close enough that a visit is worth it.
Drop activities that do not nest or overlap with other destinations.
Write the reasons to be there in a sentence a stranger would believe, then test it on site.
Who to involve: Invite people who already use the place at different times of day, someone who programmes the uses, and someone who owns nearby destinations.
Why it helps: You can then programme the place around reasons to come and stay, not a list of activities.
Watch out for: Make sure destinations nest and overlap. A list of activities is not enough on its own.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Pre-mortem. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for Pre-mortem.

What it covers: A future failure already announced as fact: what went wrong, why, causes you can still design against, and guardrails, tests and stops you can put in now.
When to use it: Optimism is silencing plausible failure modes. You need causes turned into design work before the project hardens.
How to use it: Set a date in the future and announce that the project has already failed.
Ask everyone to write the eulogy privately: what went wrong and why.
Share and group causes, staying on causes you can still design, not on villains.
Reverse the causes into guardrails, tests and stops you can put in now.
Keep the conversation on designable causes rather than blame.
Assign owners to the guardrails before optimism returns.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who would live the failure, and a sceptic who will not perform optimism.
Why it helps: Guardrails can go in while there is still time to change course.
Watch out for: Make sure causes become guardrails with owners. A blame list alone does not redesign the work.

Purpose and value (I)
What the work depends on (D)

Published toolkit page for Problem → Solution. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for Problem → Solution.

What it covers: A narrative from system threat to system success, with critical turning points in structure, money, rules or infrastructure rather than a hero winning alone.
When to use it: You must show how the system gets from threat to success. A hero story will not give you design requirements institutions can follow.
How to use it: Write the threat as a system condition, not a villain.
Write the victory as a new condition, not a person winning.
Mark the critical turning points: what had to change in structure, money, rules or infrastructure.
Add a structural turning point wherever the story still reads as a hero alone.
Use the turning points as design requirements.
Confirm the path could be taken by institutions, not only by a named champion.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, and people affected by it.
Why it helps: You can then design from structural turning points institutions can take, not from a champion story.
Watch out for: A hero story alone is not a path institutions can follow.

Who and power (W)
Purpose and value (I)

There is no published template for Public Value canvas yet.

What it covers: Three tests that must all hold: public value (what good is created, for whom), legitimacy and support, and operational capacity to deliver it.
When to use it: You are still deciding whether this should exist at all, for whom, and whether the organisation can actually run it.
How to use it: Write the public value claim in one sentence: what good, for whom, compared with doing nothing.
Fill legitimacy and support: who would authorise this, who would defend it, and who would withdraw consent.
Fill operational capacity: money, skills, partners and time to run it, not only to open it.
Test whether value, legitimacy and capacity belong to the same people, and write it down if the commissioning body takes the value and residents take the risk.
Mark what would have to be true for this to exist, and what you would stop if one of the three tests fails.
Give all three boxes owners before you move to a building programme.
Who to involve: Invite someone who can speak for the public value claim, someone who holds legitimacy (elected or mandated), and someone who would have to operate it on Monday morning.
Why it helps: This helps you decide go, no-go or redesign based on value, legitimacy and capacity, before the asset is treated as inevitable.
Watch out for: Make sure legitimacy and operational capacity are tested for the people who live with the outcome, not only value claimed for the commissioning body.

Who and power (W)
Purpose and value (I)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Research Questions. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Research Questions. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: Research questions stacked in four layers in the spirit of causal layered analysis: LITANY (what is said), SYSTEMS (how it is organised), WORLDVIEW, and MYTH or METAPHOR.
When to use it: Fieldwork risks becoming undirected listening, or questions that only validate a preferred intervention.
How to use it: Write questions at litany: what people say is happening.
Write questions at systems: how roles, money and processes hold it.
Write questions at worldview: what people believe must be true.
Write questions at myth or metaphor: the deep story underneath.
Test each question: could it challenge the preferred intervention, or only validate it?
Give fieldworkers this stack, not a list of confirmation prompts.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who will do the fieldwork, and people affected by the intervention.
Why it helps: This helps you plan fieldwork that can challenge a preferred intervention, not only confirm it.
Watch out for: Confirmation prompts alone turn fieldwork into listening for a solution already chosen.

Who and power (W)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Rich Context. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Rich Context. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: Nested context around the current problem: emerging niche initiatives, long-term trends, the current system, institutional and economic structures, culture and practices.
When to use it: The challenge is framed too narrowly for systemic work. Context layers that decorate an unchanged problem statement will not help.
How to use it: Write the current problem statement in the middle, as it is today.
Fill the rings and quadrants: long-term trends, current system, institutional structures, economic structures, culture, practices.
Place emerging niche initiatives where they sit against that context.
Ask what in the context would force you to rewrite the problem.
Rewrite the problem statement until the context has changed it.
Carry the new statement into the next activity, not back into the old ask unchanged.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the current system, and people in a niche initiative.
Why it helps: The next activity can be briefed from a problem statement that context has actually changed.
Watch out for: Make sure the problem statement changes after you fill the context. Pretty rings around an unchanged ask are decoration.

There is no published template for Rich picture yet.

What it covers: A messy picture of the situation: conflict, folklore, unofficial routes, and the climate of the problem, not a tidied process map.
When to use it: The situation is wicked and contested, and a clean process map would hide the mess you actually have to design for.
How to use it: Put a large sheet on the wall and draw people, places, things, rumours and feelings as they are, not as they should be.
Include unofficial routes, folklore, conflicts and who is not speaking.
Let more than one person draw, without appointing a single artist who tidies as they go.
Keep going when the picture feels embarrassing or argumentative; that usually means you are closer to the situation that exists.
Stand back and name three tensions the picture shows, written as questions rather than as a process.
Photograph the mess and give those tensions owners before anyone redraws it as a swimlane.
Who to involve: Invite people who disagree about the situation, including someone who works the unofficial route, and a facilitator who will stop the group sanitising the drawing.
Why it helps: This helps the group design for the situation that exists, including conflict and folklore, rather than for a tidied process nobody lives.
Watch out for: Make sure conflict, folklore and unofficial routes are on the page before anyone tidies the mess into a process map.

What the work depends on (D)
Setting and change (E)

Published toolkit page for Roadmapping. — This picture is the published GOV.UK Futures Toolkit page for Roadmapping.

What it covers: Stages from today to a future you are aiming for, each with a decision gate that can stop or change course. Dates sit with learning, funding and estates as well as build work.
When to use it: Use this when you have a direction after visioning or scenarios and you need a timed path with clear points to stop or change course.
How to use it: Write today at one end and the future you are aiming for at the other.
Fill the stages between as decisions and capabilities, not only rooms or fittings.
Put a gate on each stage: what you must know, and what would stop or change course.
Align dates with learning, funding and estates, not only with construction.
Add a gate to any stage that still has none before you publish.
Agree who sits on each gate and record their names.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator who will live the path, and capital and service owners who will sit on the gates.
Why it helps: You can then move stage by stage with a clear stop or change-course rule, instead of locking into a schedule that cannot reverse.
Watch out for: Make sure every stage has a decision gate someone can use to stop or change course.

Setting and change (E)

This picture is the printable A3 template for Scenario 2×2 / futures cone.

What it covers: Four plausible worlds on two axes of uncertainty, or a cone of futures, used to test a decision rather than to display one favoured future in four costumes.
When to use it: Use, climate, funding or threat can flip, and a single favoured future would leave the asset untested.
How to use it: Choose two critical uncertainties as axes; they must be independent, and both must actually be uncertain.
Name the four worlds and write a short, concrete description of each, including who loses.
Take one live decision (site, contract, operating model) and test it in all four worlds.
Mark survive, adapt or fail in each world, with a reason.
Rebuild the axes if three worlds are straw men for one favoured future.
Agree design or policy changes that hold in more than one world.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts who can defend the axes, and at least one operator who would have to run the asset in an unloved world.
Why it helps: You can then test a decision against several plausible worlds, so the asset is not specified for one favoured future in disguise.
Watch out for: Make sure each world gets a serious test. Four quadrants that hide one favoured future will not show what would break the asset.

Who and power (W)
Purpose and value (I)

Published toolkit page for Seven Questions. — This picture is the published GOV.UK Futures Toolkit page for Seven Questions.

What it covers: Interview answers using the Shell Seven Questions method, then the themes that go into an Issues Paper, from a real conversation rather than a tick-box survey.
When to use it: Decision-makers must surface assumptions before a futures workshop, and a survey would let those assumptions stay hidden.
How to use it: Interview decision-makers one at a time, using the seven questions in full sentences.
Cover critical issues, favourable and unfavourable futures, culture, lessons, and what they would do next.
Keep it a conversation rather than turning the questions into a form.
Extract themes and tensions into an Issues Paper before the group meets.
Put disagreements on the page, attributed or anonymised as you agreed.
Go back and talk again if the interview felt like a survey and assumptions stayed hidden.
Who to involve: Invite the decision-makers you will interview, a skilled interviewer, and a facilitator who will protect minority views when the Issues Paper is used.
Why it helps: You can then take assumptions from real conversations into an Issues Paper, so a futures workshop does not start from a tick-box survey.
Watch out for: Make sure the interview stays a genuine conversation. Treating it as a tick-box survey leaves assumptions hidden.

Who and power (W)
What the work depends on (D)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Social Ecosystem Map. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Social Ecosystem Map. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: Nested rings from BIO-ECOSYSTEM through MACROSYSTEM, EXOSYSTEM and MESOSYSTEM to MICROSYSTEM, with roles, flows and obligations written on the links.
When to use it: Talking about a value network sounds too commercial for the setting. Nested circles with no who-owes-what will not show interdependency.
How to use it: Place the person or group in the microsystem: who they deal with daily.
Fill mesosystem links, then exosystem, macrosystem, and the bio-ecosystem if living systems are in scope.
On the links, write flows and obligations: who owes what to whom.
Add arrows and duties wherever the circles are empty.
Keep social language where commercial value-network wording would mislead.
Name unpaid obligations that the pretty structure had hidden.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, people who live in the microsystem, and someone who can name unpaid obligations.
Why it helps: This helps you see who owes what to whom across nested social settings, not only nested circles.
Watch out for: Make sure every important link carries a flow or obligation. Empty circles look social without showing duty.

Purpose and value (I)
What the work depends on (D)

There is no published template for Social Value / TOMs canvas yet.

What it covers: Social value turned into contractual outcomes: jobs, local spend, environment and inclusion, each with a measure someone will actually run. Themes, Outcomes and Measures (TOMs) is the common UK procurement frame.
When to use it: Public money will buy more than square metres, and social value is about to become a percentage on a procurement score.
How to use it: List the themes that apply: jobs, local spend, environment, inclusion, or others this contract can actually affect.
For each theme, write an outcome in lived terms: who gets what, where, by when.
Add a measure and an owner who will report it after contract award, not only at bid stage.
Write the mechanism: how the contractor or operator will produce that outcome in this place.
Strike any line that exists only to score points and has no lived mechanism.
Put the surviving lines into the draft contract language before anyone treats the workshop as the delivery plan.
Who to involve: Invite commercial or commissioning leads, the delivery owner who will manage the contract, and someone who would receive the jobs, spend or access.
Why it helps: This helps you put social value into the contract as outcomes someone will run, rather than leaving it as a score on a bid.
Watch out for: Make sure each line has a lived mechanism for jobs, local spend or inclusion that someone will run after award.

Who and power (W)

There is no published template for Stakeholder / actor map yet.

What it covers: Named people, teams and organisations around the work, with lines for how they relate, and a clear note of who sits at the centre and who sits at the edge.
When to use it: You still cannot say who is in the system, who sits at the edge, or who can stop the work.
How to use it: Agree what the map is about in one sentence and put that in the centre.
Add each actor as a named person, team or organisation, not a logo.
Draw the relations that matter: who funds, who regulates, who delivers, who can stop the work.
Mark who sits at the centre of the work and who is treated as periphery.
Ask who is missing, including people who will never attend a workshop, and add them.
Name who can say no, who pays, and where conflict sits before you treat the map as finished.
Who to involve: Invite someone who knows the politics, someone who is not usually invited, and the person who asked for the work.
Why it helps: This helps you decide who to work with, who to watch, and who can stop the work before you lock the direction.
Watch out for: Make sure the map names who can stop the work, who pays, and where conflict sits. Add those names as well as logos and job titles.

Who and power (W)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Stakeholder Discovery. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Stakeholder Discovery. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: Stakeholder dimensions: characteristics that matter, extreme poles A and B, and interview profiles that reach people who were not already invited.
When to use it: The actor list is incomplete or politically skewed. Discovery that only confirms the guest list will miss people who matter.
How to use it: List characteristics that would make someone matter in this system: use, harm, knowledge, exclusion.
Set two extreme poles for a characteristic, for example always heard and never heard.
Build interview profiles at the extremes and in between, not only the middle.
Write how you will reach people who are politically inconvenient.
Run the protocol and add names the first list missed.
Change the extremes and go again if discovery only confirmed the invite list.
Who to involve: Invite someone who knows the politics, someone who is not usually invited, and the person who will do the interviews.
Why it helps: Interviews can reach people the first list missed, instead of confirming who was already invited.
Watch out for: Make sure profiles reach the extremes, including people who are inconvenient. A middle-only sample only confirms the guest list.

Who and power (W)
Purpose and value (I)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Stakeholder Mobilisation. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Stakeholder Mobilisation. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: POWER, URGENCY, LEGITIMACY and a MOBILISATION ASK: who asks whom, for what commitment, by when, so a contact list becomes a coalition.
When to use it: Plans exist but coalitions do not. A contact list alone is not mobilisation.
How to use it: Place each actor on power, urgency and legitimacy.
Write a mobilisation ask: who asks them, for what commitment, by when.
Write what they would commit to, in a sentence they could sign.
Sequence the asks so people who need others to move first are later.
Replace any contact-only entry with a commitment ask.
Track who said yes, who said no, and who you have not asked.
Who to involve: Invite someone who knows the politics, someone who is not usually invited, the person who will make the ask, and a programme lead who can accept a no.
Why it helps: You can then build a coalition from asks and commitments, not from a contact list.
Watch out for: Make sure every important actor has an ask and a commitment sentence. Contacts without asks are not a coalition.

What the work depends on (D)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Story Loop Diagram. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Story Loop Diagram. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: A CORE LOOP of behaviour, a STORY LOOP that keeps it going, and INFLUENCERS around both, so the system is explained as loops rather than a single villain.
When to use it: Causal maps need the stories people actually tell. Explaining the system as one villain will miss the narrative that keeps behaviour in place.
How to use it: Write the core loop: the behaviour that keeps repeating, as a loop, not a line.
Write the story loop: the narrative people tell that keeps that behaviour sensible.
Place influencers who feed the story or the core.
Read the two loops together: where changing the story would change the behaviour, and where it would not.
Keep the explanation as loops rather than collapsing into a villain.
Pick one intervention on the story, one on the core, and say which you are not doing.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, people who tell the story from inside the loop, and a facilitator who can keep the group off villain explanations.
Why it helps: Interventions can target story and behaviour loops you have named, instead of hunting a villain.
Watch out for: Make sure both the behaviour loop and the story loop are drawn. A villain story alone will not show what keeps the pattern going.

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Synthesis Map. — This picture is the nearest official Systemic Design Toolkit poster for Synthesis Map. The Design Journeys pack has no dedicated page for this canvas, so the closest published sheet is shown.

What it covers: INSIGHT CLUSTERS, RELATIONS between them, a SHARED PICTURE and OPEN QUESTIONS, so research joins into a picture people can decide from.
When to use it: Research piles up without something people can join to. A display that cannot support a named decision is not yet synthesis.
How to use it: Cluster insights from the inquiry and name each cluster in a full sentence.
Draw relations between clusters: causes, conflicts, dependencies.
Build one shared picture the group can stand in front of.
List open questions that would change the picture if answered.
Write the decision this picture is for and reshape it until it can support that decision.
Treat the open questions as the next work before adding more research.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who ran the fieldwork, and people who must decide.
Why it helps: A named decision can be taken from a shared picture, with open questions queued as the next work.
Watch out for: Make sure the picture supports a named decision. A display nobody can act from is not synthesis.

Who and power (W)

Published toolkit page for System actors. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for System actors.

What it covers: Who decides, who drives change, and who is pushed out in this arena, with power to stop the work and money named beside each actor rather than logos alone.
When to use it: Actor power in the futures arena is still fuzzy. Name who can stop the work, and who holds money, so you know who to engage first.
How to use it: List actors in this arena: who decides, who drives change, who is displaced.
Place them by power, interest or knowledge, as the layout asks.
Name who can stop the work and who holds money.
Mark who is missing, including people who will be displaced.
Replace any logo-only entry with a named person or role and their power.
Write who you will engage, in which order, before the next futures move.
Who to involve: Invite someone who knows the politics of the arena, someone who is not usually invited, and the programme lead.
Why it helps: This helps you decide who to engage first, with power to stop the work, and money named, rather than working from a logo cloud.
Watch out for: Make sure power to stop the work, and money are named for each important actor. Name power to stop the work, and money, beside each actor.

What the work depends on (D)
Setting and change (E)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for System Archetypes. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for System Archetypes. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: A picker of named system archetypes such as escalation, limits to growth, shifting the burden, eroding goals, success to the successful, tragedy of the commons, fixes that fail, growth and underinvestment, accidental adversaries, and attractiveness principle.
When to use it: The pattern feels familiar but unnamed. Forcing every problem into Limits to Growth will mis-name the redesign.
How to use it: Tell the observed behaviour in evidence, without an archetype name.
Lay out the archetype cards and match more than one if needed.
For the match, copy the loop structure onto your case with your variables.
Write the typical trap of that archetype, and whether you are already in it.
Write the typical redesign, and whether you can actually do it here.
Pick again from the evidence if every problem got the same card.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, people affected by it, and someone who will resist a fashionable archetype.
Why it helps: This helps you redesign from a named pattern that fits the evidence, not from one default archetype.
Watch out for: Forcing Limits to Growth onto every case misnames both the trap and the redesign.

Who and power (W)
Purpose and value (I)

Published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for System Value Proposition. — This picture is the published Systemic Design Toolkit poster for System Value Proposition. It is the official Design Journeys page, not a redrawing.

What it covers: What the whole system should achieve at economical, ecological and societal levels, for whom across actors, so one organisation's offer cannot swallow multi-actor public value.
When to use it: A product value proposition canvas collapses public value that sits with many actors. One organisation's offer is about to be written as system value.
How to use it: Write what you would like to see achieved at economical, ecological and societal levels.
For each, name for whom across actors, not for one organisation.
Strike lines that are one organisation's offer in disguise.
Write what the system would have to stop doing to keep that value.
Draft from system outcomes, not by swapping nouns on a product canvas.
Test interventions: whose value is created, whose is spent.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, and people affected by it, across more than one organisation.
Why it helps: You can then test interventions against multi-actor public value at economical, ecological and societal levels.
Watch out for: Make sure value is held across actors, not by one organisation's offer. A product proposition alone will swallow public value.

Purpose and value (I)
What the work depends on (D)

This picture is the printable A3 template for Theory of Change / outcomes chain.

What it covers: A chain from activities through mechanisms to outcomes in the world. Every arrow is a claim that can be evidenced or cut.
When to use it: The building is being talked about as if it were the outcome, and you need to see what would actually have to change in people's lives.
How to use it: Write the outcome in the world first, on the right, as a change for people or place rather than a completed building.
Work backwards: what would have to happen just before that outcome, then before that, until you reach activities you control.
Under every arrow, write the mechanism: why that step would cause the next, and remove the arrow if you cannot say why.
List assumptions and write how you would know each one was false.
Mark which links a building could help, and which links it cannot carry.
Read the chain aloud and fill any jump from a civic centre to cohesion with nothing in between.
Who to involve: Invite someone who owns the outcome in policy, someone who would run the activities, someone who lives with the current situation, and an evaluator who will challenge arrows.
Why it helps: You can then see which change claims you can evidence, and stop asking a building to do a job it cannot do.
Watch out for: Make sure every step has a mechanism. A jump from a new civic centre to cohesion with nothing in between cannot tell you what would have to be true.

Purpose and value (I)
Setting and change (E)

This picture is the printable A3 template for Three Horizons.

What it covers: Three bands: horizon 1 (managing the present, the dying system), horizon 3 (the emerging future you believe), and horizon 2 (the messy transition between them).
When to use it: The building or service will outlive the current operating model, and a wish-list labelled horizon 3 would skip the transition work.
How to use it: Draw three bands and, in horizon 1, describe the system that still runs today, including what is dying but funded.
In horizon 3, describe the emerging system you actually believe, not a mood board.
In horizon 2, write the messy experiments, conflicts and bridges between them.
Force links: every horizon 3 hope must connect to a horizon 1 constraint it has to deal with.
Mark what the building or programme would lock in for decades, and which horizon that lock belongs to.
Add horizon 2 work before you treat horizon 3 hopes as a transition.
Who to involve: Invite people who run today's system, people working on the emerging one, and an operator who will live through the mess of horizon 2.
Why it helps: This helps you put transition work between the dying system and the emerging one, so the future is not a wish-list taped over today's constraints.
Watch out for: Make sure every emerging hope links to a constraint in the system that still runs today. Without that link, transition work has nowhere to live.

Purpose and value (I)
What the work depends on (D)

Published toolkit page for Urgency Matrix. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for Urgency Matrix.

What it covers: Futures plotted on importance against value and cost, or urgent against important, so you can choose which five-star futures to chase now, sequence or drop.
When to use it: You must prioritise which five-star futures to chase. If everything sits in one corner, the axes are not yet honest.
How to use it: List the five-star futures or options you might chase.
Plot them on the two axes the layout uses.
Force distribution until not everything sits in one corner.
Circle what you will chase now, what you will sequence, and what you will not.
Keep this as a prioritisation of futures, separate from mapping uncertainties.
Leave with a short chase list the group can defend.
Who to involve: Invite people from policy, people who run the service, people affected by it, and someone who can refuse a future that is merely loud.
Why it helps: You can then publish a chase list that is not all urgent and important at once.
Watch out for: A plot crowded into one corner means nothing is allowed to wait.

Purpose and value (I)

Published toolkit page for Vision of the future. — This picture is the published Actionable Futures Toolkit page for Vision of the future.

What it covers: Wild seed ideas for futures worth arriving in, written so they differ from one another before any five-star filtering.
When to use it: Concept seeds are too tame before filtering. One agreed corporate vision dressed in many costumes will waste the next step.
How to use it: Generate seeds that are actually different, including some that would embarrass the current plan.
Write each as a future worth arriving in, with who thrives and who does not.
Keep one copy where several seeds are the same vision, and invent others that differ.
Hold off five-star filtering until the set is genuinely diverse.
Carry a diverse set into five-star futures.
Restart if all seeds still point at the already-agreed future.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, at least one operator, and someone who will propose a seed the organisation does not already want.
Why it helps: You can then filter genuinely different seeds, instead of ranking one corporate vision in many costumes.
Watch out for: Tame copies of the already-agreed plan will not open new options at filtering.

Purpose and value (I)

Published toolkit page for Visioning. — This picture is the published GOV.UK Futures Toolkit page for Visioning.

What it covers: A preferred future narrative (the picture of success the group chooses to aim for) plus near-term steps towards it, with consequences for policy and investment, not a slogan.
When to use it: A shared picture of success is missing before roadmapping, and the vision is at risk of becoming a slogan with no consequences.
How to use it: Write a preferred future as a narrative people can see: who is doing what, where, in which year.
Keep it preferred, not predicted, and say so.
Derive near-term steps that would have to start now.
Write consequences for policy and investment: what you would fund, stop or refuse.
Add the steps and the refusals if it is only a slogan so far.
Use it as an input to backcasting or roadmapping, not as a poster on its own.
Who to involve: Invite strategy and policy leads, analysts, and at least one operator who would have to take the near-term steps.
Why it helps: This helps you constrain policy and investment from a preferred future, so roadmapping does not start from a slogan.
Watch out for: Make sure the vision has consequences for policy and investment. Near-term steps that never constrain today's choices leave you with a slogan.

This picture is the printable A3 template for Wardley Map (landscape altitude).

What it covers: A Wardley Map: user need on the right, a chain of components that meet it, and an evolution axis from genesis (newly invented) through custom and product to commodity. Landscape altitude here means how far up or down that chain you are looking.
When to use it: The real decision is build, buy, platform or stop, and a value-chain sketch with no evolution axis cannot make it.
How to use it: Write the user need on the right and anchor everything to that need.
Chain the components that meet it, from visible to invisible.
Place each component on the evolution axis: genesis, custom built, product, commodity.
Challenge anything marked novel that is actually a commodity, and anything marked commodity that is still a bet.
Mark build, buy, platform or stop against the placement, not against taste.
Add the evolution axis before you decide if you only have a value-chain sketch.
Who to involve: Invite someone who knows the user need, someone who knows the market maturity of the components, and a decision-maker who can choose build, buy or stop.
Why it helps: You can then decide build, buy, platform or stop from evolution on the axis, rather than from a value-chain sketch alone.
Watch out for: Make sure the map has an evolution axis from genesis to commodity. Without it, build, buy, platform or stop cannot be decided.