Description

System Architecture Tool Box

Blockchain for Lean

Design better systems — before you design solutions

The System Architecture Tool Box is a modular, hands-on kit for analysing, designing, and improving complex systems.

It supports teams, educators, and organisations in navigating social, technical, economic, environmental, and political complexity without jumping prematurely to solutions.

The kit combines:

• Lean thinking

• Blockchain-inspired system architecture principles

• System design thinking

• Human and ethical considerations through the Life Consideration Circle

This makes it suitable for system innovation, policy design, organisational change, and education.

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What makes this toolbox different

Most innovation tools focus on outputs.
This toolbox focuses on conditions.

Instead of asking “What should we build?”, it helps teams ask:

• Where should we intervene?

• What assumptions shape behaviour?

• Which values and trade-offs are at play?

• Can life, trust, and cooperation actually thrive in this system?

By slowing down thinking at the right moments, better design decisions become possible.

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What’s inside the System Architecture Tool Box

1. STEEP System Design Thinking Canvases (A0)

A central working surface to map system challenges across:
Social · Technical · Economic · Environmental · Political dimensions.

This canvas functions as the shared reference point to which all insights return.

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2. Consideration Circle Canvases (A0)

A set of large-format canvases used as break-out perspectives:

• Life – the primary condition of all systems

• Value – what is created, exchanged, and protected

• System – where and how to intervene

• Process – flow, waste, and friction

• Trust – coordination beyond control

• Scarcity – limits, assumptions, and constraints

Each circle helps teams temporarily focus on one dimension, surface tensions, and then reconnect insights to the STEEP canvas.

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3. Quality Management Quartet Cards

A set of tactile cards used for:

• inspiration,

• reframing,

• and loosening fixed thinking during workshops.

The cards introduce Lean–Blockchain quality principles in a lightweight, playful way.

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4. Companion A4 Booklet

A printed guide that explains:

• the purpose of each canvas,

• how to use them individually or together,

• and how to work with the toolbox without a facilitator.

This makes the kit fully usable as a standalone product.

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How to use the toolbox

The System Architecture Tool Box can be used:

• in workshops and design sprints,

• in education and training,

• or as a reflective design instrument for teams.

Typical use:

1. Map the system challenge on the STEEP canvas

2. Use one or more Consideration Circles as focused lenses

3. Return insights to the central canvas

4. Identify meaningful intervention points

There is no fixed order.
The toolbox adapts to the context.

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Who this toolbox is for

• System designers and architects

• Policy makers and public sector teams

• Innovation labs and consultancies

• Educators and students

• Organisations working with complexity, governance, or transformation

No prior knowledge of blockchain is required.

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A note on Life and ethics

The Life Consideration Circle introduces an ethical reference point without prescribing ideology.

It helps teams reflect on human conditions, balance, and consequences —
without turning the toolbox into a philosophical framework.

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In short

The System Architecture Tool Box helps you:

• see systems more clearly,

• intervene more wisely,

• and design with responsibility.

Not by adding more solutions —
but by asking better questions.