Systems Practice Course

Welcome Systems Practice practitioners!

Kumu is a collaborative, web-based platform for creating interactive system maps. We've partnered with The Omidyar Group and +Acumen to provide free access to Kumu for the duration of your course.

Tips for getting started

1. See what's possible

If you're not already familiar with Kumu, click on the links below to explore existing projects build using Kumu:

• Hewlett Foundation’s The Madison Initiative
• Hawaii Quality of Life

2. Watch the videos

We’ve created a number of videos that walk through what you’ll need to do in Kumu as part of this course. We’ll show you how to get signed up, how to build your first loop, how to re-arrange loops into an overall map, and how to decorate that map to clearly articulate your analysis. These videos are included in the relevant module.

3. Start simple

Kumu has lots of features and functionality that are quite powerful but easy to get lost in. Focus your efforts on building the structure of your map (adding factors, connecting them, and creating loops) and save the decorations for after you’ve built your map.

4. Read the docs

We've built an extensive set of materials to help you in learning how to make the most of Kumu. We recommend that you start by reading the Systems Practice guide and then explore other guides as needed.

5. Reach out

If you get stuck or have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team (support@kumu.io) and we’d be more than happy to assist.