Human-Centered Design for Change in Complex Systems

Catalog description

Bringing about change in ourselves, our teams, our organizations and the complex systems we inhabit and interact with each day can be a challenging undertaking. This interdisciplinary course brings together conversations, theories, and methodologies from design, organizational behavior, human factors, and systems engineering to consider how we might approach change efforts in a manner that considers the complexity of the system and the individuals who affect and are affected by it. Individually and in small teams, students will critically examine stakeholders and systems at a range of scales, starting from a single person to large-scale systems with diverse stakeholder groups. A variety of large-scale systems will be explored, including but not limited to education, healthcare, and energy. Throughout the course, students will engage with methods for deeply understanding system stakeholders, approaches to systems analysis and modeling, change theories, and well-documented change processes.