A discussion on Facebook about Gene Bellinger’s self-conscious revival of his ‘certified’ (or, as he says, certifiable) systems thinking course made me think to post this.

At SCiO (systems and complexity in organisation – www.systemspractice.org), as the UK professional body for systems thinking practice, we have one accredited offer and have supported another.

These are systems thinking *practice* certifications, and are peer assessed based on a portfolio of actual work (so not directly accrediting *thinking*, but practice).

The direct offer is a professional qualification based on the competency framework: https://systemspractice.org/page/scio-competency-framework-professional-qualification
This is available worldwide.

The competency framework is a set of recognised systems practices – the criteria being that they draw on recognised systems laws – and supporting practices, which are needed to be effective.

The offer we support is the England and Wales Level 7 (postgrad) Systems Thinking Practitioner apprenticeship, a 30-month apprenticeships-levy-eligible qualification on day release from an employer: https://systemspractice.org/node/715
This is also assessed by experienced practitioners based on a portfolio.

At the moment (and partly because of the *enormous* work involved in setting up the apprenticeship) I feel that we are lacking governance mechanisms to adapt two of the critical boundaries:

• what count as the systems laws
• what count as approved systems practices

(and a third thing – what counts as approved supporting practice)

…but they have been worked on and discussed over many years, so it’s a well-founded line in the sand for now.

So there is a formal and reasonable well-credentialed certification of competencies in systems thinking *practice* availabel.