I collected my results and reflections on #AdventOfSystemSeeing 2025 on a page on my blog: https://sebastian-hans.de/blog/aiss-2025/
Most of this has already been posted here, but I have added a PDF version of my zine “Advent(ure) in System Seeing 2025”, so you can print it, too, if you like.
And @sebhans awesome zine from the #AdventOfSystemSeeing is here:
https://hachyderm.io/@sebhans/115780531339528008
@RuthMalan thank you for sharing !
Given the quantity of interesting things we forgot when information was scarce, the AI slop years and west beyond-true-and-false-bulldhit in-leaders are going to be a black hole.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/115737683647764053
After 24 days of “burning the midnight oil” each night, creating a web page for the next day’s #AdventOfSystemSeeing activity, I was… ready to create another week of prompts for another System Seeing Journal Starter Kit for folk to use to get 2026 off on a system journaling note?
Well, noooo… I figure last year’s version will do for that, while I create … surprises :)
#AdventOfSystemSeeing day 4. I could draw an image, but writing a blog post fell by the wayside with kids performances, limited time for pair work with @StOnSoftware that needed to go into production software & knowledge sharing before the holidays. Also other blog posts that needed to go out and took time to put together.
#AdventOfSystemSeeing, day 24. Doing this on Christmas Eve with 2 kids? No chance! Today, they are busy with their presents, and I have some free time. I admit, I groaned every time I encountered a “make a zine page” exercise because drawing does not come naturally to me, but now I already had 5 pages I wanted to finish it. So I added a title page and created two additional pages to illustrate all the tools we used during the course of our Advent(ure). I am quite pleased with the result. I intend to keep it on my desk as a tangible reminder to practice system seeing more often, and as a quick reference.
Thank you, @RuthMalan, for your prompts and the effort you put into them! Doing this on a website instead of only the feed was a good idea. It made it easier for me to tag along slightly behind, and also to review the tools and methods for my tool collection pages.
A photo of the second tool collection (and final) page follows (can only attach 4 pictures here).
RE: https://mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/115737683647764053
My mastodon wrapped says #AdventOfSystemSeeing is my most used hashtag this year, and well, yeah… 24 days of Advent prompts is more than (at most) 12 months of #PapersInSystems announcements :D
#AdventOfSystemSeeing Day 24: Adventure Zine
Complete your zine, and It’s a Wrap!! 🎄
https://www.ruthmalan.com/Advent/2025/Day24.html
Zine I created with the pages that @sebhans shared during this Advent(ure):
Reflecting on #AdventOfSystemSeeing, day 23: There were definitely “differences between [my] external dialogue and internal thoughts and feelings.” I think this is necessary to a certain degree. In general, you don't want to bleat out the first thing that comes to mind in a professional setting. In the situation I had in mind, I had certain suspicions about the motives of the other party, but this was not the moment to address them. There will be a meeting at the beginning of the new year where the cards will be put on the table. We will prepare for this and hopefully have a fruitful discussion then.
Reflecting on #AdventOfSystemSeeing, day 22: This exercise felt very similar to “Exploring Constraints and Forces” on day 19. When I squint a bit, the goal here looks like the problem there, the actors here form a subset of the constraints there, the impacts here are roughly equivalent to the forces there, and the responses here look like the approaches there. Assumptions are not explicitly called out here, although some of the impacts I listed are indeed assumptions rather than proven facts.
In order to not just copy everything over, I chose a different goal to explore today.
What's new here is the last paragraph where we ask about side-effects and explore further beyond the right side of the diagram. We could do that with the other one, too, however.
So, @RuthMalan, am I right about this being kind of a subset of day 19? If not, what did I miss?
“In every collaborative modeling session YOU are part of the model: your biases will affect the flow and the outcome too. Better be aware of yours”
— Alberto Brandolini
#AdventOfSystemSeeing Day 23: Notice What We Add
#AdventOfSystemSeeing, day 21. Another zine page, oh my! Well, here we go.
"understand the situation, must see it as a whole, must see the inter-relation of all the parts… [but] must do more than this. He must see the evolving situation, the developing situation. His wisdom, his judgment, is used, not on a situation that is stationary, but on one that is changing all the time."
-- Mary Parker Follett, The Essentials of Leadership
#AdventOfSystemSeeing Day 22: Shifting Outcomes
#AdventOfSystemSeeing, day 20. Two things I added to my map that weren't explicitly in focus on days 1 through 19 is seeing what's there and seeing what's missing. Seeing what's there means not being content with the first impression and jumping to conclusions but looking closer for what's really there, e.g., do we really have cause and effect here or is it just correlation? Seeing what's missing means noticing gaps in our understanding or in arguments, and working to fill them.
“First the essential or defining properties of any system, are properties of the whole which none of its parts have.”
— Russell Ackoff
#AdventOfSystemSeeing Day 21: System Concepts, Take n+1
Reflecting on #AdventOfSystemSeeing, day 19: Mind mapping on paper does not work for me. I always end up needing more space in places where I did not plan for it, resulting either in very crammed corners or spaghetti connections. So I made a table instead, with columns for constraints, forces, assumptions, and approaches. I linked constraints with the forces they generate and assumptions I made about them. I marked each force assisting my endeavor with a green plus sign and each resisting force with a red minus sign. I also linked forces and assumptions with possible approaches that build upon them or try to counter them, and I included my assessment of the efficacy of each approach. I did this iteratively, adding entries to all columns as they occurred to me.
Initially, I came up with a lot of resisting forces, until I realized that I myself and my current role in the team could count as forces, too. Now it's even, which matches my gut feeling. It could go either way.
Filling the first three columns enabled me to think about possible approaches in a more structured way. Not all approaches are mutually exclusive, and they address different subsets of the forces. Most importantly, I noticed an important gap: some of the positive forces hadn't been properly utilized yet. Thinking about this enabled me to come up with a new approach that might have the best chance of success.
This may well have been the most immediately helpful exercise up to now.
“Reflection. noun
An action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.”
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
#AdventOfSystemSeeing Day 20: Reflections
Reflecting on #AdventOfSystemSeeing, day 18, I realize that most of the capabilities required for the system to fulfil its purpose are external to the system – or at least out of scope of the team nominally responsible for the system. This has already made some things more difficult than they should be.
“Our job [..] how to devise methods by which we can best discover the order integral to a particular situation."
— Mary Parker Follett
#AdventOfSystemSeeing Day 19: Exploring Constraints and Forces
Likewise with the folk sharing their work on the #AdventOfSystemSeeing
Everyone who has shared of course, but especially @sebhans (who continued sharing after we reached the point where we can't share the work done, only shareable insights and observations from it.)
