About OOSTKit

Online tools for Open Systems Theory.

Practical, theory-grounded tools for practitioners who design organisations where people manage their own work.

The project

Why we built this

OOSTKit (Online OST Kit) is a growing collection of practical tools built on Open Systems Theory — a framework for designing organisations where people manage their own work. OST was developed through decades of action research, beginning with the work of Fred Emery, Eric Trist, and Merrelyn Emery at the Tavistock Institute.

Many OST methods were designed for in-person workshops with physical materials. OOSTKit brings these methods online — making them accessible to distributed teams, remote facilitators, and anyone exploring participative design for the first time.

The theory

Open Systems Theory

If you don't get these criteria right, there will not be the human interest to see the job through.

— Fred Emery

Open Systems Theory provides a practical framework for designing organisations where people manage their own work. Developed from forty years of fieldwork by Fred and Merrelyn Emery, it gives practitioners tested methods for building genuinely productive workplaces — not through culture programmes, but through structural design.

The team

Built by practitioners

OOSTKit is built by practitioners who use these methods in real organisations. We're a small team focused on making OST tools that are simple, useful, and true to the theory.