Systems thinking for business process consultants

Business processes don’t exist in isolation; they are embedded in systems of strategy, people, culture, technology, and feedback. Process consultants who ignore this system context risk making technically elegant changes that fail in practice.

Understand the system, not just the process

Traditional process analysis focuses on tasks and flows (e.g. SIPOC, swimlanes, RACI). Systems thinking asks:

• What systemic role does this process play?
• What does it stabilise, reinforce, or constrain?
• What sits upstream (inputs, rules, incentives)?
• What is affected downstream (outcomes, user behaviour, morale)?

Look for Stocks and Their Flows

Processes often interact with or manage stocks (accumulations) like backlogs, knowledge, trust, inventory and cost commitments. Most chronic inefficiencies stem from the mismanagement of stocks—not task errors.

Identify:

• What is being accumulated or depleted?
• Are we seeing short-term optimisation at the cost of long-term depletion (e.g. staff morale, customer goodwill)?

See: 🌱 Systems Thinking - Stocks and Flows

Understand the Feedback Loops

Every process is surrounded by reinforcing and balancing loops:

• Reinforcing: “The more we delay onboarding, the more stakeholders escalate, the more exceptions arise, the more we delay.”
• Balancing: “As defects increase, QA tightens inspections, reducing speed, which reduces defects.
  Use causal loop diagrams (CLDs) early to diagnose why improvement initiatives stall, reveal resistance points and predict where fixing one thing might break another

Question the Purpose, Not Just the Performance

Ask not just “is the process working?” but:

• What is it trying to achieve?
• Is that purpose aligned with wider system goals?
• Has its true purpose changed without the process adapting?

Example: An expense process built to prevent fraud may now be blocking productivity. If the organisation’s risk appetite has changed, the process may be working perfectly—for the wrong purpose.

Consider Delay and Policy Resistance

Business processes often lag behind shifts in strategy, policy, customer expectations, technology capabilities. These delays create friction and resistance. Improving the flow isn’t enough—you must also ask:

• What delays in the system are obscuring or undermining change?
• Who is acting to restore the old equilibrium, and why?

Engage Stakeholders as System Participants

People embedded in a process are part of the system: they experience feedback, adapt to optimise their own outcomes and often understand the real system better than senior leadership

Co-create system maps with frontline staff. Use their insight to understand local workarounds, discover hidden goals, identify ignored feedback loops

Identify Leverage Points for Lasting Change

Donella Meadows describes leverage points as the most effective places to intervene in a system. Common leverage points in process improvements include: