About the Advent(ure) in System Seeing

This is the fourth year of the Advent Of System Seeing. Each day of Advent (Dec 1 to 24), there is an activity that is focused on the concepts and practices of system perceiving and understanding. This activity has instructions (which often include a visual canvas or model that can help focus and structure the work in that particular activity), as well as a small set of quotes for reflection and nuance.

Once the advent is over, the prompts are collected up into a "starter kit" of journal prompts, for use any time in the year, although January can be a good time for getting new habits grooved in, what with the Janus feeling of turning the page on the old year and starting the new with fresh resolve.

Some examples of work from the Advent(ure) last year (2024) on Mastodon (see other examples using the #AdventOfSystemSeeing hashtag): Some examples of work from January this year (2025) on LinkedIn (using the Starter Kit from Advent 2024):

Why is this worthwhile?

The Big Idea is short bursts of daily practice, sketching and writing in a Systems Adventure Journal (with some side-quests). Through these practices and related reflections, we learn about systems (in general), and as we turn our focus to particular situations, the systems become a partner in our learning journey. We learn about systems from (studying) systems.

This is useful for understanding, and acting in, situations where we’re designing and leading, impacting the systems we’re design-evolving.

What will we do?

The daily prompts give instructions and guidance on the activity for that day. These instructions are intended to be the minimum sufficient to do the activity, so that a lot of the time allocation (15-20 minutes) each day isn't spent simply reading the instructions. The quotes are for extra insight, and it's fine to skip these, or read them after the activity is completed.

Some of the diagrams, canvases, maps, we’ll create will be familiar; we'll draw on systems and design disciplines like Domain Driven Design). And some may be new, but the experience of moving among them, integrating understanding across them, is also important.

We start out with some “warm up” exercises, focused on systems concepts and practices. Then we shift to perceiving and understanding situations we’re (interested) in, and bringing systems into view.

About Ruth Malan

I am your advent(ure) guide, and I work in Systems Design and Software Architecture and Technical Leadership consulting, coaching, and training. For a sense of my work in systems and design, you might be interested in these free books:

For more of my work (free chapbooks on Systems, Architecture Principles, and Architecture Decisions; slidesets; training classes): www.ruthmalan.com