Methods for analysing Causal Loop Diagramms

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Khalid Saeed
Senior Member
Posts: 79
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

Methods for analysing Causal Loop Diagramms

Post by Khalid Saeed »

Well said Jim,

Perhaps model building and experimentation with a model should come before
systems thinking not after.

Khalid
From: Khalid Saeed <saeed@WPI.EDU>
Jamal Nasir
Junior Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

Methods for analysing Causal Loop Diagramms

Post by Jamal Nasir »

Dear Guenter,
I think a paper
eport written by David Ford
David.Ford@ifi.uib.no
<mailto:David.Ford@ifi.uib.no> could be interesting for you. It was
something:

"A Behavioral Approach to Feedback Loop Dominance Analysis"

Please contact him to get a copy.

Best wishes,
From: Jamal Nasir <jamal@mot.chalmers.se>
**************************************************************
J A M A L N A S I R
School of Technology management & Economics
CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
S-412 96 Gothenburg, SWEDEN
Tel: +46 31 772 2491(Off.), +46 31 488093(Res.)
Fax: +46 31 772 2497
http://www.mot.chalmers.se/mcf/staff/ja_na.htm
<http://www.mot.chalmers.se/mcf/staff/ja_na.htm>
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OSSIMITZ Guenther
Junior Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

Methods for analysing Causal Loop Diagramms

Post by OSSIMITZ Guenther »

Guenter Emberger wrote:

> Dear SDers,
> do know which methods could be applied to analyse Causal loop diagrams.
> I try to do an qualitative assessment of an complex Causal Loop Diagram.
> First and easy ist to count the which elements are are most active and
> which are most passive.

This is an approach that has been developed and marketed by FredericVester (which
is most probably unknown outside the German speaking
countries). First he called it "Papiercomputer", now he sells it computerized
for quite a lot of money as "Sensitivitaetsmodell".

> Another approach would be to estimate and count all possible paths through
> the model and calculate if the effects for the path are positive or negative.

The most elementary approach to analyze causal loop diagrams isto identify
"positive" and "negative" feedback loops. In the context
of organizations famous Peter M. Senge made a whole "discipline" out of this
in his book "The Fifth Discipline".

Of course quite a number of SDers think rather low of qualitative analysis
(see e.g. Jim Hines reply). Quantitative modeling is that what counts for them:
there one gets "precise" graphs and figures and predictions and so on.

Qualitative approaches are much less standardized than the "hard" quantitative
SD modeling methodology. This makes them more prone to criticism, but
IMHO they have the advantage to be much more flexible so that they
can applied in contexts where quantitative modeling simply is not adequate
or rather artificial (like quantifying Hamlets emotions in a SD model suggested
by Peterson).

Greetings

--
<b>ass</b>. Prof. Dr. Guenther OSSIMITZ
University of Klagenfurt
A-9020 Klagenfurt, Univ.str. 65 Austria/Europe
mail:
ossimitz@bigfoot.com
http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/users/gossimit/home.htm
JESUS IS LORD - YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER!
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