My two cents

So there is a big bias I have to reveal before I answer this question, which is I'm not a System Thinking practitioner. So take everything I say here with a big grain of salt.

Whenever someone tells me this new field will replace this old field, I tell them that story:

When the iPad, when TV come, came out, people said, this is the end of radio, you know, and years later, what we see is radio is still something happening. What has changed is that radio it has become more precise and more niche and more specific.

When then the iPad came out, people said Books are dead. And if we look at the background of Daniella, we see that there are many books and still she might own an iPad.

This show is that whenever a new way of thinking comes it doesn't replace completely the one from before.

It just helps the one from before to be less general and more specific.

 And I think it's the same with design thinking versus system thinking.

When to use System Thinking and when not

You can recognize, oh, here I'm in a problem that is very social, that is interacting with many different people, cultures also complete ecosystems.

Then system thinking is a much better tool than Service Design.

But if you are working on improving the waiting time of a café System Thinking might get you thinking about stuff that is very interesting, but not very useful at that moment.

When to use Service Design and when not

If you use Service Design to solve very complex problems then you might end up with solutions that are very practical, but that solve only a tiny bit. And they might even be dangerous as they have domino effects that you didn't think about.

If you are working for a café and you want to improve the waiting time, then definitely Service Design is a very good tool.

Summary: When to use what mindset

Sometimes you want to make something sugary then use sugar. Sometimes you want to make something salty, then use salt. And sometimes you want to make the best bolognese sauce like my Nona does.

Then, you have to put some sugar in the bologna sauces to go with the salt because that's what makes her bolognese sauce, so good.

So the question is not so much should I use system thinking and not use any more Service Design, or should I use Service Design and not system thinking, but rather :

• For simple problems, use Service Design.

• For complex issues, use System Thinking,

• and in the middle you can always mix them together.

Resources to go further

• Book: Closing the Loop, Systems Thinking for Designers By Sheryl Cababa

• Article: "System Thinking for Service Design Inspirations" by Yulya Besplemennova

• Tools: Enhanced service design tools with System Thinking, Future Casting and Behavioral Change.

More Service Design questions and answers like this one

Check out all the questions about Service Design as a career or the differences and complements between Service Design and other fields.