QUERY Low Threshold System Dynamics

[Bill Harris <bill_harris@faci]

Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>

Well, the title may be a bit misleading, but it's stimulated by the recent discussions here about the use of SD in business and government.

I sometimes sense we make out SD to be a big deal: something one does after a lot of education or training, something that takes a lot of time and money to do (big projects), and something that requires our clients or managers to buy into the process before we start (big programs).

While recognizing that there are some modeling efforts that are that big, I conjecture that SD can make a big impact on a far more natural, organic scale. That is, I conjecture we can help others by using SD as a natural part of the way we work, much as we use other decision-making or problem-solving techniques as organic parts of our work processes.
In other words, we don't sell people on SD; we simply apply SD.

I conjecture that such an approach might do wonders for getting SD used more if it's truly as useful as we seem to think; if it's not, we'll find out naturally and quickly, and we can adapt.

>From reading about some of Jay Forrester's early work on yellow pads, I
sense that may be similar to how he started.

Instead of advocating this theoretically, I thought I'd share a conversation I had recently that incorporated modeling as a relatively natural component. You can see it in a series I've started today on my blog (http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/20 ... art-1.html).

I'd welcome your thoughts about the process we used as it unfolds on the blog. Either reply to this email, post your comments on the blog, or send any you'd prefer to keep more private directly to me.

Thanks,

Bill
-- Bill Harris
Facilitated Systems
Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:57:45 -0700 _______________________________________________