hexagon-complexity-mapper

name	hexagon-complexity-mapper
description	Map a complex topic by placing factors on hexagonal tiles where adjacency signals a claimed relationship. Use when students need to surface hidden connections in a system before analysis or action.
disable-model-invocation	false
user-invocable	true
effort	medium
skill_id	systems-thinking/hexagon-complexity-mapper
skill_name	Hexagon Complexity Mapper
domain	systems-thinking
version	1.0
evidence_strength	emerging
evidence_sources	["Hodgson, A. (1992). Hexagons for systems thinking. European Journal of System Dynamics, 59(1), 220–230.","Meadows, D. (2008). Thinking in Systems. Chelsea Green. (systemic structure, feedback, unintended consequences)","Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline. Doubleday. (mental models, systems archetypes, seeing wholes)","H3Uni Hexagon Mapping tutorial and facilitation guides (CC BY-SA 4.0, practitioner method)"]
input_schema	{"required":[{"field":"topic_or_challenge","type":"string","description":"The complex topic, issue, or challenge students are mapping — specific enough to generate 8–20 distinct factors"},{"field":"context","type":"string","description":"School, community, ecological, or curriculum context that grounds the mapping"}],"optional":[{"field":"student_level","type":"string","description":"Year group or age range, to calibrate vocabulary and abstraction"},{"field":"mapping_question","type":"string","description":"Specific question to focus the mapping — e.g. 'What factors are shaping this situation?'"},{"field":"prior_scoping_statement","type":"string","description":"A scoping statement from scoping-for-transformative-learning-inquiry, if already completed"},{"field":"existing_evidence","type":"string","description":"Data, stories, observations, or student work already available about this topic"}]}
output_schema	{"type":"object","fields":[{"field":"mapping_question","type":"string","description":"The focused question guiding the hexagon map"},{"field":"factor_list","type":"array","description":"All factors surfaced for student hexagon tiles"},{"field":"clusters","type":"array","description":"Named clusters with member factors and the story each cluster tells"},{"field":"named_relationships","type":"array","description":"At least three specific relationships between hexagons or clusters, with direction and explanation"},{"field":"boundary_hexagons","type":"array","description":"Factors at the edge of the map representing external forces or entry points for change"},{"field":"map_insights","type":"array","description":"What the completed map reveals that was not obvious before mapping"},{"field":"quality_gate_results","type":"object","description":"Results of structural quality checks on the map"},{"field":"next_step_options","type":"array","description":"Suggested follow-on skills based on map structure"}]}
chains_well_with	["systems-awareness-iceberg","mental-model-mapper","three-horizons-learning-transition-mapper","leverage-and-response-design","agency-circles-for-systems-action","place-based-inquiry-anchor"]
teacher_time	15 minutes
tags	["systems-thinking","hexagon-mapping","complexity","relationships","h3uni","visual-facilitation","emerging-evidence","student-inquiry"]

Hexagon Complexity Mapper

What This Skill Does

Guides students through a hexagon mapping exercise in which they identify factors shaping a complex topic, write each on a hexagonal tile, and arrange the tiles so that adjacency — physical touching — signals a claimed relationship between two factors. The arrangement is not sorting into categories. It is a collective act of relationship-claiming. When two hexagons touch, students are asserting "these two things affect each other in some way" and must be able to explain how.

This distinction is critical. Hexagon mapping is not a brainstorming exercise with a prettier shape. It is a tool for surfacing the hidden connective tissue of complex situations: which factors cluster together because they are mutually reinforcing, which sit at the boundary of the system as external forces, and which hold the map together by appearing in multiple clusters.

The skill produces a shared visual map that becomes the input for subsequent tools such as Three Horizons mapping, systems awareness iceberg work, or agency circles.

Evidence Space and Strength of Evidence

This skill encodes the H3Uni Hexagon Mapping method, a practitioner framework developed by Anthony Hodgson. It is not a validated classroom intervention.

Component Evidence

• Hodgson (1992) hexagonal systems thinking (emerging): Hodgson's paper describes hexagons as a tool for qualitative systems mapping, particularly for surfacing relationships that are invisible in list-based or hierarchical representations. The paper provides theoretical grounding for the adjacency = relationship principle but does not include classroom evaluation data.
• Meadows (2008) systemic structure (strong): Meadows' account of systemic structure — stocks, flows, feedback loops, and leverage points — provides the theoretical framework within which hexagon mapping is meaningful. Understanding that complex behaviours emerge from structure, not from individual factors in isolation, is the rationale for relationship-based mapping.
• Senge (1990) mental models and systems archetypes (moderate): Senge's work on learning organisations establishes that mental models filter which factors and relationships people see. Hexagon mapping externalises and makes those mental models visible and collectively revisable.
• H3Uni Hexagon Mapping facilitation guides (practitioner framework): H3Uni's Resource Library includes step-by-step facilitation guides and tutorials for hexagon mapping with adult groups in policy and strategy contexts. These are practitioner resources, not peer-reviewed studies.

Synthesis Evidence

The application of hexagon mapping to school-age students and classroom inquiry contexts is a classroom adaptation. The facilitation sequence, quality gates, student worksheet prompts, and teacher moves encoded in this skill were developed at REAL School Budapest by Gareth Manning, drawing on H3Uni's open facilitation guides. This synthesis has not been independently evaluated.