CIPA525 - Designing Organizations for Systems Thinking

Course Description

Why do we start organizations in the first place? We have a vision for the future, and we need to work with others to bring that vision to life. The whole purpose of any organization is collective action. When organizations fail, it is often the result of the failure to harness the collective power of individuals to drive toward that singular vision. However, much like you would design an iPhone, you can also design organizations that are adaptive and can focus everyone on achieving the organization's vision.

In this course, Cornell University faculty members Derek and Laura Cabrera present you with the design principles of intelligent, adaptive organizations built for systems thinking. With expert guidance and hands-on activities, you will create your organization’s vision and mission, and build capacity and learning systems that support your organization’s ability to achieve these core principles. This approach is a systems leadership and organizational design model that will help you better design, guide, manage, and change your organization. It provides you with a blueprint to build the culture you need to attain your ultimate goal: to have your entire organization, at every level, working toward realizing your company’s vision.

These courses are required to be completed prior to starting this course:

• Framing Complex Problems with Systems Thinking
• Using the Four Simple Rules of Systems Thinking
• Visualizing and Modeling Complex Systems
• Building Analytical and Emotional Intelligence with Systems Thinking

Faculty Author

Benefits to the Learner

• Develop a vision for your organization or department that describes its desired future state and provides a goal that everyone in the organization should strive to meet
• Create a mission for your organization that defines the actions you and others will take to bring about the future state described in the vision
• Identify and align the mission-critical systems that build the organization’s capacity to perform the mission and achieve the vision
• Build a learning culture so your organization adapts to feedback from the environment, continually improves the mission-critical systems, and can thrive in the face of change

Target Audience

• Managers, leaders, decision makers, consultants, and anyone responsible for projects, complex processes, and the budgets and people involved with them. Learners will come from every continent and from a diverse range of organizations, including private sector companies large and small, nonprofits, governments, and NGOs.
• For people already interested in systems dynamics or soft systems methodologies, the core principles from this program can be applied to any systems-based models.

Accrediting Associations

• Project Management Institute (PMI) Approval Number 10.0 Units
• International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) Approval Number 10.0 Hours

Applies Towards the Following Certificates

• Systems Thinking : Required Courses