Ever since graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences, Chris Soderquist has sought to integrate scientific methods with human decision-making processes. For over three years, Chris was employed by High Performance Systems, Inc. (HPS), a company specializing in Systems Thinking tools and techniques, where he worked with Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, government organizations, and non-profits.

Prior to his employment at HPS, Chris worked for the U.S. Treasury Department as both a statistician and organizational development facilitator. In 1998, Chris founded Pontifex Consulting in order to spend more time working with communities, as well as government organizations and non-profits. He is further integrating and refining the tools and techniques of Systems Thinking with collaborative decision-making for use in the public sector-believing this integration will facilitate public participation and improve the quality of policy-making.

Highlighted Publications and Products
Because of his experience helping organizations utilize Systems Thinking in organizational change processes, Chris was chosen to contribute a chapter on the Strategic Forum™ in a forthcoming book, The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future (Berrett-Koehler, 1999). This chapter describes how the tools of Systems Thinking help stakeholder groups (in communities and organizations) collaboratively develop, sanity-check, and implement effective strategies-strategies of the highest leverage that everyone supports and understands. The chapter discusses how the use of a simple, common language provides a rigorous way to build collective understanding, allowing members of distinct stakeholder groups to really build consensus of both the issues and their solutions (policies). It further shows how computer simulation helps groups safely test that understanding, by implementing potential policies and "experiencing in a virtual environment" the consequences of those policies.

Chris is a co-author of Systems Thinking: Taking the Next Step, an interactive computer learning environment that teaches the practical application of Systems Thinking to a wide audience. During his tenure at HPS, he contributed to several learning environments (some customized for organizations, others for mass-market sale) because of his strong skills in developing practical learning experiences (computer-based or experiential) that help individuals and groups learn and share learnings.