Systems mapping by Deirdre Cerminaro

00:20:41 — Systems mapping: making the system tangible

Where the zoom-in/zoom-out posture is a mindset, systems mapping is its concrete instrument. Cerminaro describes it as the basic tool of systems thinking — a way to make a system tangible enough to manipulate, and especially useful for moving between scales. She is deliberately permissive about format: there are many ways to create a systems map and no wrong way to do it. The point is not formal correctness but the cognitive work of externalizing the system so you can visualize the bigger picture and identify the spots where you want to zoom in, ask new questions, or run experiments.

00:23:01 — Maps for shared understanding — and the question they should provoke

Cerminaro distinguishes two uses of systems mapping. The first is alignment: when a team needs a shared picture of how something works — an onboarding process, a market they operate within — a robust, comprehensive map can synchronize understanding and surface disagreements early. The second use is heuristic: a map is only as valuable as the question it provokes. Her own test, when someone proudly presents a finished map, is to ask: what did you learn from making it? If the answer is none, the map has failed at its job, regardless of how complete or elegant it looks.

00:25:17 — Maps reveal unexpected gaps and connections

The third use of a systems map is generative: it surfaces gaps and missing connections that would otherwise stay invisible. Cerminaro gives the example of early education, where babysitters and the healthcare system play enormous roles in a child’s life but have no formal connection to the school system. Once the map makes that gap visible, the designer can ask whether the disconnect is intentional, whether they simply lack information, or whether there is something concrete to be designed there. The same logic that distinguishes obvious from non-obvious stakeholders applies to obvious and non-obvious links between subsystems.