Iceberg Model

In systems thinking, the “Iceberg Model” is an approach to breaking down a complex problem and then working from the topmost, obvious components of that problem down to the more fundamental, formative, and often (at first) invisible causes and amplifiers.

Systems thinking, itself, is predicated on the emergent nature of things in aggregate, and how the relationships between things can result in unintuitive outcomes.

This can be useful when looking at holistic systems that, if we only considered their constituent parts, wouldn’t seem as potent as they become, in aggregate: the global water cycle, biological ecosystems, and the cultural, psychological, sociological, and practical impacts of a nation’s political system, for instance.

The Iceberg Model proposes a method by which we can break up larger, complex systems into strata that make it a bit easier to assess what causes what, and thus, which lower-level levers we might use to instigate outsized change at higher levels (where those changes may ultimately reverberate).

At the top of the iceberg-like shape used to illustrate this model, we have observable events.