Large System Architecture

Thinking Out the How

Here — in a new edition — is the account of Minnesota's six decades of public-sector innovation. 

This book of recollections covers the thinking and decisions about major system issues: about governmental arrangements for the Twin Cities region, state and local public finance, roads and transit, the medical-hospital system and especially public education: Section Six brings up to date the story of the new model of personalized schooling now appearing. 

Most important perhaps, it explains the essential strategy involved; the alternative to endlessly deploring problems, to believing that the only policy option is the choice between cutting and taxing. Minnesota has found there is the constructive alternative of redesigning major systems to get at the causes of problems. 

Thinking Out the How is available as a free pdf: Click here to view and download.

Policy Design for Large Social Systems

January 2021 · By Walter McClure

If the organizations in a macrosystem are chronically malperforming . . . not performing as society wants . . . it is almost always because the fundamental system structure is flawed and rewards the undesired performance and punishes the desired performance. Difficult as it is, there is no enduring remedy except to restructure the larger system (“macrosystem redesign”) so that it rewards the desired performance and punishes the undesired performance.

The policy discipline to accomplish this I term Large System Architecture (LSA), the idea being that if you wish a system to perform well for society, you must intentionally architect it to do so rather than let the system develop by topsy and historical happenstance.

Policy Design for Large Social Systems is  available for print and Kindle on Amazon.