This class is a part of the OTX – Extended Expertise educational offerings, powered by Org Topologies.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the training, participants will be able to:

• Understand and apply Systems Thinking in real organizational contexts — using a systemic lens on everyday challenges such as dependencies between teams and quality-vs-speed trade-offs.

• Build and interpret system models by identifying key variables, feedback loops, delays, and interactions, and using them to tell a coherent story about a complex situation.

• Distinguish between local and global optimization and recognize how locally rational decisions can degrade the overall system.

• Differentiate correlation from causality and avoid common misinterpretations and reasoning traps in problem-solving.

• Facilitate collaborative systems-modeling sessions across roles (e.g., developers, managers, stakeholders) and turn shared insight into agreed action.

• Apply Systems Thinking in retrospectives and problem-solving workshops to generate actionable and sustainable improvements rather than surface-level fixes.

• Leverage AI as a support tool in systems modeling to accelerate insight generation and challenge assumptions.

Who Should Attend

This workshop is for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, Product Developers and Product Owners, Managers and Leaders, HR and Organizational Development professionals. Whether you are new to Systems Thinking or already familiar with it, this workshop will help you move from understanding to real application.

Why This Matters

Most improvement efforts fail — not because of bad intentions, but because they treat symptoms.

A team is slow, so you add a process. Dependencies block delivery, so you add a coordinator. Quality drops, so you add reviews. Each fix makes sense locally. But the system doesn't get better — it gets heavier.

The pattern is everywhere: organizations keep solving the same problems over and over, each time a little differently, each time convinced this time will work. The real issue isn't the people or the effort. It's that the system producing the outcomes is invisible to the people inside it.

Systems Thinking makes it visible. It gives you a way to step back and see how the parts connect — the feedback loops that amplify small problems into big ones, the delays that make cause and effect hard to trace, the well-meaning local decisions that quietly degrade the whole. Once you see the structure, you stop fighting symptoms and start changing what generates them.

This isn't just an abstract theory. It's the practical difference between organizations and teams that keep them from firefighting and those that actually improve.

Certification

Participants who successfully complete this course earn the OTX-AST (Applied Systems Thinking) accreditation.

The OTX-AST badge recognizes that the holder can apply systems thinking in organizational contexts: build and read system models, distinguish local fixes from systemic improvements, facilitate cross-role modeling sessions, and use these skills to drive sustainable change in teams and organizations.

The badge is awarded upon completion of the training and is valid as a standalone credential. It also counts toward the broader OTX certification pathway for those pursuing deeper expertise in organizational design and transformation.

Trainer

This program is taught by Wolfgang Steffens.

Wolfgang has been deeply immersed in agile product development since 2005 — long before agility became a corporate buzzword. He coached his first Large-Scale Scrum adoption in 2007 and has since guided numerous organizations in redesigning their structures, simplifying coordination, and enabling real adaptability at scale.

His expertise spans LeSS, Scrum, Kanban, Lean Thinking, Systems Thinking, the recently created Creating Agile Organizations approach, and even SAFe. This combination allows him to support companies holistically: not simply implementing agile rituals, but redesigning the system so teams can deliver value with clarity, focus, and speed.

Before becoming a full-time coach and trainer, Wolfgang held senior roles in product and program management across global technology companies. This industry background gives him a rare ability to connect organizational design with the realities of product strategy, dependencies, delivery pressure, and stakeholder demands.

Clients consistently describe his coaching as clear, grounded, and transformative — with a focus on learning, transparency, and practical structural change.

Why Systems Thinking Skills Are Relevant Now More Than Ever

Most organizations don't struggle because people lack ideas. They struggle because problems are misunderstood, oversimplified, or solved in isolation. And with the rise of agentic AI systems, the stakes are even higher — today, everyone is designing systems, whether they realize it or not. Every workflow you automate, every agent you deploy, every integration you wire up is a system design decision with feedback loops, delays, and unintended consequences.

Systems Thinking gives you the shared language to see what is really going on across roles — from developers to managers — to understand why problems persist, and where meaningful change is actually possible. As Peter Senge describes it, Systems Thinking is the "Fifth Discipline" — a key capability for becoming a true learning organization.

From Theory to Daily Work

This is not a theory-heavy workshop. It is about applying Systems Thinking directly to your real business challenges.

Team & Organization-Level Retrospectives — Move beyond "what went wrong last sprint" and uncover systemic causes behind recurring issues, hidden dependencies and bottlenecks, and why improvements don't stick.

Problem-Solving in Product Development — Whether it's long lead times, poor product quality, unclear priorities, or constant firefighting — learn to model the problem, identify leverage points, and design more effective interventions.

Organization Design & Decision-Making — Understand how structure, roles, and policies influence outcomes. Why do teams remain dependent? Why does coordination dominate delivery? Why do local optimizations hurt the whole? Systems models make these dynamics visible and discussable.

Augmented Thinking with AI — A unique aspect of this workshop is the use of AI to support systems modeling. Explore how AI can help you quickly draft system models, challenge assumptions, generate alternative perspectives, and accelerate learning cycles. Not as a replacement for thinking — but as a powerful thinking partner.

What You Will Gain

• A practical method to analyze complex problems by identifying key variables, feedback loops, delays, and interactions, and using them to tell a coherent story about a complex situation.

• The ability to facilitate better retrospectives and workshops across roles (e.g. developers, managers, stakeholders) and turn shared insight into agreed action.

• Tools to connect symptoms to root causes and avoid common misinterpretations and reasoning traps in problem-solving.

• Confidence to tackle organizational challenges systematically — distinguishing local from global optimization and recognizing how locally rational decisions can degrade the overall system.

• Experience in combining human insight with AI-supported modeling to accelerate insight generation and challenge assumptions.

How We Work

You won't just learn concepts. You will bring your own real problems and work on them step by step. With guidance, you will build your own system models, test assumptions, and leave with concrete insights you can apply immediately.

Class Experience