If you have taken the time to depict your area of operations or region of concern in terms of systems, it is useful then to obtain as many different perspectives (or takes) on the system and its parts as you can. Perspectives, and their associated narratives (or stories), come from three principal sources: stakeholders or players in the systems, practitioner observers of the system (e.g., a UN official or US AID representative), and a scholarly observer of the system (e.g., someone with scholarly expertise on Africa). Military professionals should, invoking the Design Ethos of collaboration and dialog, should integrate as many of these perspectives as necessary (and as time allows) to get a fuller, richer understanding of the dynamics at play in your area.
The example I use for perspective-taking is General McChrystal, who talk about
