QUERY Society Strategy Development

[""Wehrenberg, Stephen"" <Step]

Posted by ""Wehrenberg, Stephen"" <Stephen.B.Wehrenberg@uscg.mil>

""Everyone's behavior makes sense to that person"" (unless there exists a
pathology, of course) is among the small number of rock hard facts in the
behavioral sciences. As Carl Rogers suggests, if you could see the
situation through the other person's eyes, you would probably reach the
same conclusion they reach. That implies that you need to change the mental
model or causal map the other individual holds so as to provide alternate
pathways to different conclusions. Rogerian psychotherapists work that way.

(I think Jack Harich might suggest here that helping people detect lies would
be in this arena.)

John, I will add a third way to change behavior -- change the structure. I
would post a cartoon here, but I think it would be a copyright violation, so
I'll describe it. The artist is Leigh Rubin, and the comic is Rubes. The
image is a fellow standing at the door of the Institute for Behavior
Modification. He's trying to get in, and is groping for the doorknob. The
doorknob is up near the top of the door, not its usual place. Pretty profound,
I think, particularly for those in SD who recognize that the structure creates
the outcome, and you have to change the structure to change the outcome.
Here's a link:

http://www.creators.com/comics/rubes/19925.html

So back to Peter's comment, which I will paraphrase here as ""Why do people do
what they know to be bad for them and not do what they know to be good for
them?"" What perverse structure sustains this behavior?

Steve
Posted by ""Wehrenberg, Stephen"" <Stephen.B.Wehrenberg@uscg.mil>
posting date Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:48:17 -0400
_______________________________________________

[Justin Longsworth Jagger <jag]

Posted by Justin Longsworth Jagger <jaggerju@msu.edu>

I find the Wehrenberg statements to be an incredibly compelling argument
as to the fundamental nature of human beings (and their subsequent
organizations) and the source of change resistance. If I may add my two
cents:

One key aspect of human nature to remember is that by nature, we are
incredibly adaptive (i.e. innovative). This may be why the old axiom of
""If it ain't broke, don't fix it"" continues to hold true. Thus, only
when ""it"" breaks does it merit attention (i.e. root cause analysis).

Only when people begin to focus towards an ANTICIPATORY reality, will
they transition from the traditional REACTIONARY state of mind.

Best regards,

Justin Jagger
Posted by Justin Longsworth Jagger <jaggerju@msu.edu>
posting date Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:34:43 -0400
_______________________________________________

[""John Gunkler"" <johngunkler]

Posted by ""John Gunkler"" <johngunkler@comcast.net>

Steve, and List,

I often push for the inclusion of good psychology in our models, so I
appreciate Steve Wehrenberg's attempts to get at root causes of resistance
to change.

I'd like to offer a couple of my insights as well.

1. There is such a thing as behavioral ""inertia."" That is, it is difficult
to change a behavior that has been well established by a past history of
events. As a colleague once taught me, ""Everyone's behavior makes sense to
that person."" No matter what we ""objectively"" may think about someone
else's behavior, that person must have a history where the behavior
(overall) has provided positive outcomes or they wouldn't be engaging in
that behavior.

2. There are really only two ways to change behavior (what follows is
everything I know about ""motivation""):
a. Through instilling fear of negative outcomes as a result of
continuing the behavior.
b. Through assuring that there are more, and more beneficial,
positive outcomes for changing behavior than for continuing the former
behavior.

3. Behavioral inertia is understandable, then, because (a) we have a
history of (at least slightly) positive outcomes, so to believe there will
be a change in the future will require some heavy arguments about what's
different now than in the past; and (b) a bird in the hand (our experience
with positive outcomes) is worth two in the bush (someone else's ""promise""
that the future will be better with different behavior.)

""Why do people do what they know to be bad for them and not do what they
know to be good for them?""

Before getting into structural explanations, I would have to ask:

1. What does it mean to say that people ""know"" that something is bad for
them or good for them?
2. When we say that someone else ""knows"" something, how do we know that?
Is it our opinion that they know it, or do we believe that that (somehow)
they should know it -- or do we have actual evidence of their knowledge?
[In which case, please refer to the first question, above.]

What this may boil down to could be this: Simple ""knowledge of"" something
is not a very good behavior change agent.

One clue to what happens may be derived from Chris Argyris/Peter Senge's
""Ladder of Inference."" If you're not familiar with it (and if not, shame on
you!), it is a graphic that shows how taking action (i.e., behavior) is
related through a chain of inferences to observable events and experiences.
One implication of the Ladder of Inference, I think, is that behavior will
not change until all of the inferences are made -- that is, until
""knowledge"" turns into beliefs which impel actions.

The trickiest part is the ""reflexive loop"" that connects beliefs to data --
that is, our beliefs about the world influence how we select ""data"" to be
considered (from all of the objective input we get from the world), which
influence what we think the meanings of the input are, which influence the
assumptions we make, that allow us to draw conclusions and, therefore, to
adopt beliefs [and we're back into the loop again.]

So, the idea that someone ""knows"" something may not mean that they have
actually accepted that knowledge (as fundamentally valid data), nor that
they have derived the same ""meaning"" from it that we do, nor that they make
the same assumptions we think they should, nor draw the ""right"" conclusions.

There's many a slip between the cup and the lip.


John
Posted by ""John Gunkler"" <johngunkler@comcast.net>
posting date Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:14:23 -0400
_______________________________________________

[""peter Luttik"" <peter.lutti]

Posted by ""peter Luttik"" <peter.luttik@dotank.nl>

I really enjoyed reading the responses to my note about change
resistance. First I need to clarify to Steve that my intention was to
focus on understanding the role change resistance playes in structuring
and maintaining social systems. If you take the view that survival of
social systems is good, that means that change resistance has also a
positive role to play.

The US federal papers and the founding fathers intention to limit power
and decision making - which they considered a positive design feature
also plays a role. Basicly every growth cycle with limits to balance
it is unstable and collapses justs as quickly as it grew. So slowing
down change is allready at a very fundamental level necessary to bring
stability.

Second John's paper triggered me on the role of intuition in decision
making. I look at intuition as the acquired insight or in argyris terms
the mental models of individuals or organisations, whose origins - the
data pool and selection thereoff has become inaccessible. Who reads the
federal papers anyway . Many cultural mental models have that
character. E.g. as a dutchman married to an American I find the US
friendliness appealing, albeit sometimes superficial, while my wife
likes the dutch openness as long as it doesn't become to rude. The
call that the frontier versus the island intuition. The US frontier
required one to make friends quickly and avoid enemies. The dutch
islands behind dikes required one to solve differences even if it took
some effort. Most of us don't live either at the frontier or at an
island, but the intuitive behaviour is through training and example
sustained. Most of us don't think about the function of
superficiality or rudeness (or their positive sides), but just live with
them. Could it be that the vast majority of our shared knowledge is in
that sense intuitive - without knowledge of its origins (for most): why
do we need to cut costs, focus on stakeholders or shareholders, be on
time etc.

To me strategic decisionmaking is mostly a process of clarifying
intuitions, both on values as well as processes. What do we all know
to be true and right, so much so that we never talk about it? A key
role of working with systems models is to start working on the visible
side of our knowledge - the things we are aware off (and we often aren't
good in) and explore the invisible values and knowledge. Mental models
not as source of resistances but as viable and sustaining memes (Dawkins?)

Maybe in our search for change and adaptation we should learn to value
the achievements of those memes and then move forward. I will spend
the next two days trying to understand why the dutch farming community
is doing so well (even though like all farmers they are complaining
endlessly). Trying to move from the accepted knowledge and myths to
the underlying roots has allready been a wonderfull learning journey,
which gave me lots of respect for the complexity and the strengths of
the historically grown structures. We modelled that and are now going
to test its resiliance against some extreme but possible futures to see
what we can learn from that.

Our reason for existence has always been to promote change, adaptation
and identifying new directions. And I believe that to be critical in a
society where most forces responsible for steering us look backwards,
while change is speeding up.

But maybe we need to add uncovering the value(s) created in the
past. A systemically learning society could then avoid the short cuts
of populism as well as the blockades fueled by fears of the future to
move societal performance to a higher level.

Or is that overly careful and should we accept our role a the ""jester of
the king': telling truth in a funny way. Or that of the ants without a
sense of smell, who get lost, often die, but sometimes find the new
sources of food that the ""normal ants"" following their smell path will
never uncover.

Does this still make sense and does it help in finding strategic
direction for SD??

Peter
Posted by ""peter Luttik"" <peter.luttik@dotank.nl>
posting date Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:42:29 +0200
_______________________________________________

[Jay Forrester <jforestr@MIT.E]

Posted by Jay Forrester <jforestr@MIT.EDU>

It seems to me that the discussion in this thread has drifted away form
the subject. There has been much abstract musing about social change
and the difficulty of creating change.

However, as I see it, the Society is not resisting change. Rather the
challenge is defining the future of system dynamics and the Society.
When we have a clear picture of the desired future for the Society and
the field of system dynamics, then there could be a concrete discussion
of how to achieve that future.

For now, we should be focusing on the kind of future that we desire to
create.

Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management
Sloan School, MIT
Posted by Jay Forrester <jforestr@MIT.EDU>
posting date Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:23:14 -0400
_______________________________________________

[Jack Harich <jack@thwink2.org]

Posted by Jack Harich <jack@thwink2.org>


SDMAIL Wehrenberg, Stephen wrote:
> I've been researching the issue of ""change management"" for some time,
> and have an evolving theory that plays to the challenge Peter poses.

Some nice thoughts here. Ironic that you've used the word ""frame."" What
you are suggesting seems to build on something I just mentioned in
another post: Lakoof's framing approach. See the last paragraph at
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/proje ... le_framing
which says:

""To avoid negating the opposition's frame and thus activating it, do the
following: start with your ideal case of the issue given. Pick frames in
which your ideal case is positively valued. The contrast will attribute
the negatively valued opposite quality to the opposition as a nightmare
case.""

In your post, the worst case is the framing you don't want, and the
vision to achieve is the framing you do want.


> Of course in all my reading of the literature of sustainability, we
> usually see the worst case presented first, then as an afterthought
> suggest that if we act, the worst case need not obtain. Perhaps we
> have been doing it backwards all along.
Starting with a positive vision is a frequent tactic of successful
leaders. Indeed the definition of leader versus manager hinges on vision
versus control.

It could be that what you suggest is a psychological approach to change
resistance at the agent level, when in fact what's needed is an approach
at the system level. This is not nearly as easy to speculate about
solutions on because it requires a hefty amount of analysis first. But
that's what we system dynamics aficionados excel at.

Still, very interesting ideas. Thanks!

> Perhaps this suggests that we need to describe a desirable future
> state first, along the many dimensions that we usually see raised as
> objections (it will kill the economy; everyone will be out of work;
> the costs of carbon mitigation are prohibitive; let the market solve
> the problem; etc.). If I had all the time in the world, I would do
> something to identify key stakeholder groups (decision makers,
> influencers), figure out what their ""stakes"" are, and then craft a
> story that improves their lot while solving the problem of
> sustainability. Once the story is firmly imbedded in the culture, one
> could begin to decompose that future state (What would have to happen
> for that condition to exist? And what would have to happen before
> that? !
>
> And before that? And that means that the next thing we should do --
> right now -- is _______?) into action steps.
> The key is the collective commitment to the image of the future
> state--the pre-filled picture frame.
This would depend on the root cause of the particular problem being solved.

For the sustainability problem, continued solution failure for over 30
years is evidence of high systemic change resistance. Collective
commitment is probably not a way to solve the change resistance part of
the problem. It would instead be a symptom that we have solved it.

Regarding ""If I had all the time in the world, I would do something to
identify key stakeholder groups (decision makers, influencers), figure
out what their 'stakes' are, and then craft a story that improves their
lot while solving the problem of sustainability.""

This has been tried. Read Maurice Strong's ""Where on Earth Are We Going""
which covers the history of the early environmental movement and the
birth of so called sustainable development, from the perspective of one
of the key problem solvers and institution managers (UNEP's first
director, Secretary General of the Stockholm Conference and the first
Earth Summit). The level of wheeling and dealing among powerful
stakeholders at the international level is so jaw dropping I had to read
some long passages twice. Even though problem solvers like Strong were
brilliant and dedicated enough to try for most of their careers, this
solution approach failed.

Why? Well, this is a situation in which there is nothing the less
dominant agents can offer the dominant agent to change his behavior from
unsustainable to sustainable. The less dominant agents are people, NGOs
and governments. The dominant agent is the modern for-profit
corporation. If you doubt this is true, here's one small bit of recent
proof: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/business/02trade.html The
article says:

""Opposition from corporate interests, including oil, gas and power
companies, prompted the Bush administration to opt out of the Kyoto
Protocol, a treaty that called on developed countries to limit their
emissions.""

This is but one example of how the corporate life form behaves, after it
was courted for decades by other stakeholders to behave ""reasonably.""

The first part of your statement takes off in a productive direction: ""I
would do something to identify key stakeholder groups."" I really like that.

Now what might happen if you then identified which stakeholder groups
are dominant, why they are dominant, and then resolved that structurally
so that the modified system was one that wanted to aggressively solve
the problem? One way to do this is existing agent redesign and/or the
introduction of new agents. There are other possible ways, such as the
example of the Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace. In this
example, a strategy that has long allowed the dominant agent/special
interest to exploit the political system no longer works, once the high
leverage point is pushed on and the root cause of systemic change
resistance is resolved.



Thanks, Steve, for such provocative thoughts,

SDMAIL peter Luttik wrote:
> I feel challenged by the decomposition. My associations around
> change resistance have to do with deepening our understanding of
> choice and awareness, a field that is only just now becoming the
> subject of scientific inquiry. What happens during a paradigm shift
> in the brain, how do we start to think differently and accept new
> structures.
Peter,

A delightful post. Sorry I didn't reply sooner. I've been dealing with a
difficult analysis that has preoccupied my feeble mind. Plus I wanted to
give this some thought and complete reading a related paper.


The above and the messages of the last few days deal mostly with
""psychological"" change resistance. This is useful but limiting, and is
not where the emphasis and real power of the original use of the term
""change resistance"" lies.

Here's a pertinent quote from ""Challenging 'Resistance to Change' "", by
Dent and Goldberg, 1999, Journal of Applied Behavior Science, V35, No1,
page 29:

""The notion of 'resistance to change' is credited to Kurt Lewin. His
conceptualization of the phrase, however, is very different from today's
usage. Lewin evolved his concept based on the person as a complex energy
field in which all behavior could be conceived of as a change in some
state of a field. For Lewin, resistance to change could occur, but that
resistance could be anywhere in the system. As Kotter (1995) found, it
is possible for the resistance to be sited within the individual, but it
is much more likely to be found elsewhere in the system.""

That last sentence is a pointer to where our explorations are likely to
be more productive.

Surveying the popular change resistance literature, Dent summarizes:
""Moreover, they all treat resistance to change as a psychological
concept - resistance or support of change is seen as within the
individual."" The paper contains several insights I plan to ponder. See:
http://jab.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/1/25

I read this paper for the first time this week. It validates one of the
deepest findings of them all in human system theory: the tendency for
most people, even experienced analysts and academics, to fall into the
fundamental attribution error trap most of the time. Quoting from
Sterman, Business Dynamics, page 28:

""A fundamental principle of system dynamics states that the structure of
the system gives rise to its behavior. However, people have a strong
tendency to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional rather
than situational factors, that is, to character and especially character
flaws rather than the system in which these people are acting. The
tendency to blame the person rather than the system is so strong
psychologists call it the ‘fundamental attribution error.’

“In complex systems different people placed in the same structure tend
to behave in similar ways. When we attribute behavior to personality we
lose sight of how the structure of the system shaped our choices. The
attribution of behavior to individuals and special circumstances rather
than system structure diverts our attention from the high leverage
points where redesigning the system or governing policy can have
significant, sustained, beneficial effects on performance. When we
attribute behavior to people rather than system structure, the focus of
management becomes scapegoating and blame rather than design of
organizations in which ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results.”

It's not hard to realize that seeing change resistance as mainly a
psychological problem (people's quirks, motivations, awareness, fears,
mental models, habits, etc) is a case of the fundamental attribution
error. It's an easy error to make. I've done it myself for years at a
time. In the past, when I based a line of analysis on people and
psychology, I found I could not go deeper than conventional wisdom. It
was only when I finally applied the theory behind system dynamics,with
attention to avoiding the fundamental attribution error, that I was able
to go further.

As Frost said, ""... And that has made all the difference.""

For example, consider the work of George Lakoff. Lakoff is trying to
help change US public opinion from a conservative to a progressive norm.
He and everyone else who's tried that has encountered considerable
change resistance. See:
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/proje ... le_framing
for a quick intro to framing, the heart of his technique.

Now ask yourself, is his approach of framing dealing with the problem at
a psychological or a system level? Does proper framing help resolve the
root cause of the phenomenal rise of neoconservatism in the US since the
early 1970s? The answers, I think, say a lot about Lakoff's probability
of success. Similar comments can be made about innumerable social
problem efforts.


All this is why I use the term ""systemic change resistance,"" with
""change resistance"" as a shorter synonym. My apologies for not using the
full term in my June 15 post, which should have said:

""Now suppose we decompose that one big problem into three smaller
subproblems:

A. How to overcome *systemic* change resistance
B. How to achieve proper coupling
C. How to avoid excessive model drift""

Note the generic nature of the decomposition. The longer statement of A is:

A. How to overcome systemic change resistance. This is refusal to adopt
workable solutions and move away from the status quo. Once systemic
change resistance is overcome, the system will ""want"" to move to the
goal state. This is a key principle.


> Maybe we should start focusing on why the structures have been working
> so well for so long - a history of social evolution. And seek to
> understand why change resistance is actually often a good thing - what
> its function is.

A lovely, productive suggestion.

Among other things, this would lead to study of the self-evolving (aka
self-managing or self-organizing) aspect of social institutions, where
change for the better is evolved in, change for the worse dies out, and
everything else remains stable (change resistant). This can occur due to
the ponderously slow and chaotic ""trial and error"" of traditional social
system evolution, or it can occur much faster as the result of social
system engineering. The latter is seldom done, due to the immaturity of
our understanding of complex social systems. But I'd like to think it's
possible and will be the norm someday.

That day may come sooner than we think, if we can set some good
strategic goals for the Society.

Thanks Peter,

Jack
Posted by Jack Harich <jack@thwink2.org>
posting date Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:09:10 -0400
_______________________________________________

[Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@we]

Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>

Jay -

you are making a very good point and we all -coming from very diverse
eductional and business backgrounds- see system dynamics in very
different light.

How to get these views together into one single-route strategy (doesn't
have to single-laned as a Scotish country road;-))?

My personal contribution is that I have already set up a starting point
in the WikiSD (login in with your email address and your current
password that you use for getting on the Society's website).

It is about creating a shared vision (taken from Peter Senge's ""Fifth
Discipline Fieldbook"", pp. 337-339.

As everybody of us -if wished so- is contributing with his/her very own
view this would offer a good ground for further dialog in Athens where
quite a few of us will be present.

What do you think?

Best

Ralf
Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>
posting date Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:27:58 +0200
_______________________________________________

[""Leonardo Reis - Aennova"" <]

Posted by ""Leonardo Reis - Aennova"" <leonardo@aennova.com>

Mr. Forrester,

It seems to me that the discussion process is key to cope with the challenge
you propose, with which I agree completely: what is the clear picture of the
future of the Society and the field of System Dynamics.

The conversation process might be so key that it is perhaps locking us into
a position we cannot see us doing things different from they are today.

Would you share with us any thoughts you might have about possible
discussion/conversation process we might use?

Leonardo Reis
Aennova - Brazil
Posted by ""Leonardo Reis - Aennova"" <leonardo@aennova.com>
posting date Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:28:52 -0300
_______________________________________________

[""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategyd]

Posted by ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>

Sorry this process has been quiet for some weeks. I was somewhat taken
aback that we had only a short flurry of responses to the original
request to hear people's aspirations for the field, after which the
trickle of ideas dried up.

Given the strong interest and commitment from so many in the community,
this is quite a puzzle, so I have been trying to understand what is
going on. Subsequent enquiries have identified some possible reasons for
this:

1 - Some seem to fear that developing a strategy is a long, complex,
process of arguing and dispute to arrive at a rather vague document
about trying to achieve some abstract and/or unrealistic outcomes.
Whilst that may characterise some strategy initiatives, it is both
unacceptable and avoidable. The process can be relatively
straightforward, and should result in series of clear conclusions [a]
what do we want to achieve by when what has to be put together to
achieve those things, [c] what has to be done, with what investment of
effort and cash, over what timescale to put these things together, and
[d] how are we going to organise to get it done. It's just a little more
complex in non-commercial cases than in business, because of the
multiple stakeholders involved, but not impossibly so.

2 - Some seem to feel we don't need a strategy - just keep doing good
work and the world will come to our door, enabling us to make the much
bigger impact we all believe is possible. Regrettably, the evidence is
against us. Outstandingly good work has been done by excellent SD
professionals in many fields over many decades, yet as Professor
Forrester noted in 'The Next 50 Years' paper ""During the last 50 years,
system dynamics has climbed to a plateau below the mountains that lie
ahead. The field has spread very widely, but very thinly."" [see
http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferenc ... RRE555.pdf]
In effect, we face a marketing challenge, a solution to which must
feature in the strategy - other ideas and fields have done this well,
e.g. try typing 'Balanced Scorecard' into Google and look into what
comes up.

3 - Others think we don't need a strategy because everything is going
along just fine - we only need sustain single-digit annual growth for a
few more decades and SD will dominate. The evidence is again not
encouraging. Membership is small for a professional body with so many
decades of history, especially given the wide range of application areas
involved. And professions can certainly emerge and grow much more
strongly. More worrying is the heavy churn [e.g. where have all the
big-name consulting firms gone?] If a growth rate of 5% is made up of a
win-rate of 25% and loss rate of 20% [or more], not much has to change
for modest growth to turn into stagnation or decline. A strong strategy
would both win /and/ retain people.

4 - Some individuals and small groups may feel they are getting on just
fine in their own back yard, and don't see a need to get involved in the
wider effort. ... but many others are not, and nearly all struggle to
build two things - on the demand-side, clients who want their services,
and on the supply-side, professionals who can do good work. It is often
useful in fragmented, early growth situations to think of a
'pre-competitive' stage, in which it is in everyone's interests to
collaborate in increasing the size of the cake, rather than keep hunting
for a few small crumbs. We should be beyond this early growth phase, but
unfortunately we are not.

The question we started on some months ago was ... “ What achievements
would make you – and [importantly] outside observers - feel that
celebrating progess of the field is totally justified, and how would you
measure each of those achievements? ... “ I hope it was clear how
answers to this question would form the essential first part of the
strategy-development process outlined above. If we don't know where we
want to get to, it's going to be tough knowing what to do to get there.

To make this more concrete for you, I can share the types of outcome
that emerged in a project I am carrying out for another professional
body right now. Their answers included e.g.
- XXX Universities offering recognised courses in the subject,
- XXX graduating students per year,
- XXX job adverts per year specifying that candidates must possess the
capability and/or qualification
- the existence of a certified training program [with specified
content], and Chartered status for experts ['Chartered' status is a
publicly recognised stamp of professional achievement in the UK and
elsewhere, separate from University degree qualifications],
- XXX Certified and XXX Chartered practitioners in the field,
- XXX Professors of the subject,
- a library of XXX powerful case studies of professional use of the
subject, of which YYY are under 3 years old,
- XXX citations per year in the general press regarding the profession
and its work,
- Govt specification that the method is required in relevant contract
awards,
.. etc. etc.

Getting back to our own challenge, we will make the best of the limited
number of views we received regarding your aspirations for the field and
come back to you shortly with the next step. The strategy group will
then be meeting to work on the challenge on the day before the Athens
conference.

Meanwhile, all direct contributions to the strategy itself are welcome -
where we should be trying to get to and how to get there. But please can
we not spend more time debating what other questions we should be asking
instead, what other processes we should be using instead, how difficult
it is to making change happen, the philosophy of strategy and system
dynamics, or the meaning of life in general - at least not on this thread?

thanks in advance for your contributions - Kim Warren

Posted by ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>
posting date Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:37:07 +0100
_______________________________________________

[Bill Braun <bbraun@hlthsys.co]

Posted by Bill Braun <bbraun@hlthsys.com>

Jay redirects us with, ""When we have a clear picture of the desired
future for the Society and the field of system dynamics, then there
could be a concrete discussion of how to achieve that future.""

I suspect, without knowing for sure, that we are focused on what we
want, rather than on what might be. If that is correct, we are are
locked into a mental model (albeit a very expansive one). I opine there
are more ""what"" and ""why"" questions that would be useful to ask.

- What are the future possibilities that would transform SD, and inspire
each of us?
- What are the possibilities for community amongst us?
- What is the value that will cause people to turn to us for help?
- What is the larger system of which we are a part, and what role of
function might we play in it?
- What are the possibilities that span the dichotomies of:
- academic / practitioner
- theory / application
- social policy / business
- abstract problems / concrete problems
- problem focus / system encompassing

Some of these, if not all, may be greeted with, ""asked, and answered.""
All the more reason to ask them (and other possibilities questions)
again with a fresh view of what might be rather than what we want.

Sticking with such questions is difficult - we are problem identifiers
and solvers, and generally inclined to think in terms of solutions. Such
solution-based thinking locks us into trying for a better version of the
past and makes ""focusing on the kind of future that we desire to create
(Forrester)"" difficult. I opine nonetheless that without such a
conversation we will only experience a very long run for an
unsatisfyingly short slide.


Scharmer (""Theory U"", 2007, Society for Organizational Learning, Figure
2.7, page 42, [very similar graphic here]
<http://www.ottoscharmer.com/>) suggests that we benefit from
identifying when we are stuck in Downloading patterns of the past and
connecting directly to Performing (""Achieving results through practices,
infrastructures"").

Downloading Performing
Suspending [Open Mind] Embodying
Redirecting [Open Heart] Enacting
Letting Go [Open Will] Letting Come
Presencing

Pushing down the left side of the ""U"" from Downloading is Suspending
(Seeing with fresh eyes) as a dimension of Open Mind, then Redirecting
(Sensing from the field) as a dimension of an Open Heart, then Letting
Go, as a dimension of Open Will, then reaching the base of the ""U"" at
Presencing, (Connecting to the source, asking ""Who is my self?"" and
""What is my work?"" [for SDS, ""Who are we?"" and, ""What is our work?""]).

Emerging from the base of the ""U"" pushing up the right side, Letting
Come corresponds to Letting Go, Enacting (Crystallizing vision and
intention) corresponds to Redirecting, Embodying (Prototyping,
co-creating strategic microcosms) corresponds to Suspending, reaching
the top of the right side of the ""U"" at Performing.
We can go directly from Downloading to Performing (which I interpret to
be trying to have a better version of the past), or we can follow the
""U"" progressively through Suspending, Redirecting, Letting Go,
Presencing, Letting Come, Enacting, and Embodying to reach Performing.

Theories abound, this is but one. I find it compelling for the road map
it offers for finding the uncommon future within us.


Bill Braun
Posted by Bill Braun <bbraun@hlthsys.com>
posting date Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:18:16 -0400
_______________________________________________

[<richard.dudley@attglobal.net]

Posted by <Richard.Dudley@attglobal.net>

The XXX list that Kim presents seems to me to be a list of _indicators_ that
a field (or profession) is in demand. It does not tell us why it is in
demand.

An easy way to focus the discussion is to use the 'roadblock' approach, and
ask:

=> Why doesn't system dynamics already command this level of respect?
=> Why hasn't SD already created the indicated (by the XXXs) level of
demand?

The resulting list of answers (with due attention to future changes) can
provide the TARGETS for strategy development (to overcome Y we need to do
Z).

My starting list (my own impressions of what some other people think.... for
the sake of stimulating focused discussion):

Factors Limiting the Wider Use and Value of System Dynamics

1) System dynamics is poorly defined. Even within the
field/profession/methodology itself. Some people seem to assume it has
something to do with sustainability. Others assume it is a tool for
business management. Is it a philosophy? It is a approach to analysis?
Nobody seems to know what system dynamics is.

2) System dynamics tries to be everything to everyone. It's so easy that
children can do it. It's so hard you have to spend years studying for your
PhD. Wow! cool! Everything is interconnected! But what's this stuff
about Eigen values? It's a way of thinking about the world - Yes, but could
you be more specific?

3) There are a lot of computer based approaches for doing sophisticated
analyses (agents, spatial, visual simulations etc) and analysts are often
expected to use the ""newest"" technique. In some circles SD in not
considered a serious approach.

4) System dynamics is insufficiently coherent to do what it attempts - to
provide a interdisciplinary platform for addressing complex problems.
(related to number 1+2).

5) Among modelers, SD has a reputation for being imprecise, as well as
'deterministic'. SD is just one of many possible simulation approaches, and
these impressions limit its wider use.

6) On the other hand... easy-to-use software has created the impression that
SD is easy to learn in a few days... just another trick to learn in a
workshop. This has degraded the opinion of SD, and has also helped the
dissemination/publication of poorly structured models further weakening the
reputation of the field. Many users of the software have little or no SD
training.

7) The special interest groups of the SD Society have fractured an already
small organization, but have not (yet?) made a sufficiently large impact on
other organizations to which members of the SIGs belong.... because their
numbers in those organizations are too small.

Because SD is not widely accepted it is not widely used. Because it is
not widely used it is not widely accepted.

9) ? ...

So strategy can focus on overcoming these roadblocks (.... if the above, and
other, statements are 'correct' impressions).

Note: I do not think time since establishment of SD is an issue. A number
of other difficult and important fields have arisen since the start of
system dynamics (e.g. various fields in biotechnology and computer science),
and are now prominent.

Note: Another indicator for the XXX list is: In boardrooms and faculty
meetings there are heated discussions concerning which department or
division will get the honor of housing the system dynamics team!

_____________________________
Richard G. Dudley
Posted by <Richard.Dudley@attglobal.net>
posting date Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:34:26 +0700
_______________________________________________

[""Swanson, John"" <John.Swans]

Posted by ""Swanson, John"" <John.Swanson@sdgworld.net>

Thanks to Kim and others for trying to pull this discussion back on
track.

>From my point of view, some aspirations for a successful future would
be:

- when commissions are set up to investigate issues of major importance,
experts on the subject area with a system dynamics background are
routinely invited to join, precisely because of the perspective SD gives
them.
- simlarly, there would be no surprise among observers that such people
are involved (as there might be no surprise now if economists with
specialised knowledge of the subject area are asked to contribute).
- even more, serious commentators would be surprised if such people were
not asked to contribute.

Or, to put it more succinctly, commentators and observers, both
professional and the informed lay-person, would know, without having to
think about it, that SD had a serious contribution to make and they'd
expect to see that expertise being used.

John Swanson
Associate
Steer Davies Gleave
28-32 Upper Ground, London SE1 9PD
Posted by ""Swanson, John"" <John.Swanson@sdgworld.net>
posting date Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:41:12 +0100
_______________________________________________

[Markus Schwaninger <markus.sc]

Posted by Markus Schwaninger <markus.schwaninger@unisg.ch>

Dear colleagues

Wouldn't it be a good idea to realize a workshop dedicated to this
extremely important topic?

Such a workshop could be carried out on the last day of one of our
conferences, if possible, Athens.

Participants should be one or two moderators who have pertinent
experience (e.g., Kim Warren), some of our seniors (Jay Forrester, John
Sterman, etc.) and others. One should also give the youngsters
(students, Ph.D. students) a strong voice.

Kind regards,

Markus.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Markus Schwaninger
Institute of Management (IfB)
University of St. Gallen
Dufourstr. 40a, 4. Stock
CH-9000 St. Gallen
Posted by Markus Schwaninger <markus.schwaninger@unisg.ch>
posting date Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:16:54 +0200
_______________________________________________

[""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategyd]

Posted by ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>

Thanks Richard - my impression from diverse conversations over the years
is that many would agree with these challenges.

I have used force-field analysis for many years, and it certainly has a
role to play. However, that role comes later - we need an idea where we
want to get to, before we tackle the difficulties that may make it hard
to get there [e.g. if 'getting SD into schools' is not on our objectives
- hypothetically - then overcoming resistance from education policy
makers is not a resistance we need to tackle].

I also anticipate that SD itself will show how to break through many
such obstacles [one of the reasons I so like the approach] - e.g. if
'lack of awareness amongst management' is a blocker, we will already
have worked out how to crack it with parts of the strategy dealing with
'building management awareness'.

So I will keep these blockers in mind - and any others anyone wants to
raise - and we can check back to ensure we have dealt with them.

regards - Kim
Posted by ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>
posting date Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:03:49 +0100
_______________________________________________

[Jack Harich <jack@thwink2.org]

Posted by Jack Harich <jack@thwink2.org>


SDMAIL Kim Warren wrote:
> Sorry this process has been quiet for some weeks. I was somewhat taken
> aback that we had only a short flurry of responses to the original
> request to hear people's aspirations for the field, after which the
> trickle of ideas dried up.
>
> Given the strong interest and commitment from so many in the
> community, this is quite a puzzle, so I have been trying to understand
> what is going on.

I found it puzzling too. I expected a torrent of ideas, but instead I
just counted the replies actually suggesting possible goals. There were
about 16.


> Subsequent enquiries have identified some possible reasons for this:
> (long snip of the reasons)
Allow me to add another possibility: The Society has elected managers.
In business, it's typically the managers who set goals and visions, with
appropriate amounts of input from employees, customers, consultants,
stockholders, etc as needed. If a business manager sent out a request
for ""what should our goals be"" they would be seen as sending a mixed
signal. Setting goals/visions is management's job, not everyone's.
Trying to rely on a vast membership to provide the primary input for
setting goals is the equivalent of management by committee.

Thus many list members may hold back, because they see that the managers
will be providing the bulk of the goals anyhow. That's their job. Why
duplicate their work?

For example, unless I missed something, where are the goal suggestions
from the founder of the field, the president of the Society, the author
of the leading textbook in the field, and the wizards at Vensim, my
preferred SD modeling tool?

The Society's managers and those who do the real work are sharp. They
have spoken out very little on this topic. When I noticed this, I
assumed it was because they already had their own goal ideas, and would
be inputting them at a later step in the process.

Now I see this is indeed the case. A ""strategy group"" will take it from
here. I would assume that those at the top and in the know will find it
easy to input their ideas directly to the strategy group. This is how
it's done in business and government.

>
> Meanwhile, all direct contributions to the strategy itself are welcome
> - where we should be trying to get to and how to get there.

I'm puzzled. Does this mean we have moved from goal brainstorming to
strategy formulation? Since strategy is a high level plan to achieve a
goal, how can we strategize if the goal remains unknown?

It could be that the Society currently lacks the ability to set firm,
high quality long term goals and instead should settle for loose,
temporary goals. These can be iteratively improved until they suffice.


Hope this helps,

SDMAIL Kim Warren wrote:

> The question we started on some months ago was ... “ What achievements
> would make you – and [importantly] outside observers - feel that
> celebrating progess of the field is totally justified, and how would
> you measure each of those achievements? ... “ I hope it was clear how
> answers to this question would form the essential first part of the
> strategy-development process outlined above. If we don't know where we
> want to get to, it's going to be tough knowing what to do to get there.
>
> To make this more concrete for you, I can share the types of outcome
> that emerged in a project I am carrying out for another professional
> body right now. Their answers included e.g.
> - XXX Universities offering recognised courses in the subject,
> - XXX graduating students per year,
> - XXX job adverts per year specifying that candidates must possess the
> capability and/or qualification - the existence of a certified
> training program [with specified content], and Chartered status for
> experts ['Chartered' status is a publicly recognised stamp of
> professional achievement in the UK and elsewhere, separate from
> University degree qualifications],
> - XXX Certified and XXX Chartered practitioners in the field,
> - XXX Professors of the subject, - a library of XXX powerful case
> studies of professional use of the subject, of which YYY are under 3
> years old,
> - XXX citations per year in the general press regarding the profession
> and its work,
> - Govt specification that the method is required in relevant contract
> awards,
> .. etc. etc.
Kim, you've got a tough job. Let me try to help. What follows is not a
reflection on you, but on something else:

This is a list of quantitative goals. If it's meant to be an example for
the Society to follow, I find the example troubling because it is not
customer oriented. It's supplier oriented. It's like the factory manager
who measures success in terms of how much rolls out the door.

Better would be the various things that are important to the customer.
For example, that's why I mentioned the possible goal of ""the ability to
reliably solve large, pressing social problems."" Capabilities like that,
along with cost, quality, speed, etc, are what's important to the
customer. Everything else is of lesser importance and is at most a subgoal.

Who is our customer? The above goal implies it's whoever is trying to
solve large, pressing social problems.

Such customers care little about how many students are graduating per
year with a certain skill. What they do care about, more than anything
else, is ""Does that skill work? Can it solve my problems? If it can, I
don't care what academia is pumping out, because my staff can learn it
if there's not enough grads or certified practitioners.""

A similar argument could be made for everything on the list. Even the
least academic centric one of them all, government requirement of the
method, is not customer centric and hence doesn't matter much at all. If
a method is productive, suppliers are going to be using it, whether or
not the method is required.

There's another way to put all this: The above is a list of symptoms of
achieving a higher goal. If the Society tried to achieve the above
goals, it would be guilty of violating its own principle of Don't Treat
the Symptoms - Treat the Underlying Cause.


Shifting gears slightly, there appear to be different views of ""Who is
the customer?"" I see the customer as those who are trying to solve
difficult social problems. These problems are so tough they frequently
require tools like systems thinking and dynamic modeling. The customer
needs the insights those models can provide.

But the above list of goals and many (most?) of the goal suggestions see
the customer as the Society's members. The Society exists to serve them.
Given that viewpoint, it's quite natural to measure success in terms of
academic program success.

But as our own exemplar shows us, that's not how it works in the real
world. In the Beer Distribution Game, if the beer factory measures
success in terms of its own costs and how much it rolls out the door, it
stumbles. Quite badly.

But if that factory puts its systems thinking cap on, looks at the whole
system, and realizes the system exists to serve the customer, then the
factory can do well. Quite well.

So who is the customer?

Jack
Posted by Jack Harich <jack@thwink2.org>
posting date Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:20:19 -0400
_______________________________________________

[""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategyd]

Posted by ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>

thanks Bill - seems like two level answers to this question.

If we regard the members of the community as the customers for this
study, then that is exactly what we are doing by asking them [you] to
tell us of their aspirations.

If we regard the community's clients as the customers, then it's going
to be a bit tougher. As Professor Forrester noted, SD's penetration 'out
there' is very thin, so it's hard to ask people what they want about a
product they never heard of and certainly don't understand. I guess we
are anticipating that the community - in saying where they want to go -
are implicitly reflecting what they think their prospective clients
want. ... but you identify the weakness with that in your post.

What evidence might we make use of in the absence of a global survey of
potential clients? Two suggestions - first, we might seek input from
those who have been successful in sustaining client interest in SD what
it is that has kept their clients hooked. Secondly, we might ask those
who have suffered loss of clients, what they think [or even know] was
the reason for that loss.

I could make a start from my limited experience ...

1. Why people have stayed engaged ... perhaps splits into three levels.
For the smallest cases, where a very small model or even a
non-simulating framework has helped them, they seem to stay because it
offered a very quick and simple picture of their problem that enabled
them to make immediate and valuable better choices or decisions. For
mid-scale projects, they stay because the method gives real financial
value for a not-excessive input of time and money. For large-scale and
costly projects, they [usually only very large organisations] stay
because the value is so great it justifies the considerable investment
needed to have very detailed research and modeling carried out.
.. and a special case - some stay for mid- and large-scale work because
they are left with a framework or model that they can continually update
and use as routine management-of-things tool.

2. Why people have left ... again split by these levels. For the
smallest cases, they leave because they have a one-off problem and can't
see more uses, even if plenty exist - or they leave because they just
can't see how they would ever get the same insights on their own. For
mid-level cases, some leave because they don't have even the basic data
needed to crack the problem so go away saying 'it doesn't work'. For
large-scale cases, some seem to leave because the huge investment of
time and effort is either unaffordable, unrepeatable, or just takes so
long that the problem has gone away or changed by the time they get the
answer.
.. and some in all cases seem to leave because it was only a one-off
challenge, and they are left with noting to continue with.
[I'm guilty of failing to persevere and try to crack each of these
issues, so confess to having much less success than I would have liked.]

There are many, many great professionals out there with experience of
hitting what clients want, so it would be great to hear from some of
them.

But we do need to keep focused on the task at hand - finding out where
we want to go, so we stand a chance of working out how to get there.

reply to ""Jack Harich""


Loose goals - as per the many celebrated examples of 'Mission' and
'Vision' statements that fill the popular management books - certainly
have a role, and your other post today suggests at least one that has
the added advantage of addressing what success would look like from the
customers's viewpoint.
Loose goals help people feel engaged, but don't tell them what needs to
be done, so both are needed, and as you point out, circumstances change,
so both specific and loose goals may need to be changed.
Let me lastly clarify the purpose of the working group meeting before
the Athens conference - it is not to impose goals for the field or pick
and choose those it likes or dislikes. Its purpose is to start
assembling a strategy for delivering what the wider community wants to
achieve. I still hope that before then we will have a lot more folk, at
all levels of experience and expertise in SD, tell us of their
aspirations for the field.
Kim

Posted by ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>
posting date Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:11:09 +0100
_______________________________________________

[Bill Harris <bill_harris@faci]

Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>

""SDMAIL Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com> writes:

> > I have used force-field analysis for many years, and it certainly has a
> > role to play. However, that role comes later - we need an idea where we
> > want to get to, before we tackle the difficulties that may make it hard
> > to get there [e.g. if 'getting SD into schools' is not on our objectives
> > - hypothetically - then overcoming resistance from education policy
> > makers is not a resistance we need to tackle].

One of the factors I've learned as important in strategy setting is to
understand a bit about one's customers (clients) and what they want. I
don't think I've noticed that in this discussion.

Of course, there's a bit of a hang-up: we are, to a degree, in
competetion with each other, so we're not likely to say, ""Well, ABC
Inc., my customer, really wants XYZ"" because there's little in it for
any of us to say that.

There's another hang-up: we probably learn best about customers by
listening to their version, not by us saying what we think they want
(or, worse, by us saying what we think they need). That's even harder:
few of us are likely to bring our customers onto this list, and few
unattached prospects are likely to walk into this group.

Would it be reasonable and useful for us to find quotations from the
news that highlight what customers are saying they want? Is there a
better way to build such a body of insight that would then support
strategy development?

After all, if strategy includes the allocation of resources to achieve
competitive goals, there's little point in allocating resources to a
part of the landscape where no customers exist (or care). Put another
way, we might find we prefer a strategy that puts us where we're in
demand more than one that puts us where we're ignored.

Just curious,

Bill
- --
Bill Harris
Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:23:34 -0700
_______________________________________________

[Gints Ozolins <gints_ozolins@]

Posted by Gints Ozolins <gints_ozolins@hotmail.com>

One of the strategic targets for SD could be to become officially
accepted/recommended metodology for policy impact assessment in the
national and international policy making institutions. Creating a target
institution list would be part of strategy development task - some
potential candidates would be:

- European Commission : Impact Assessment
Before the European Commission proposes new initiatives it needs to
assess the potential economic, social and environmental consequences of
these actions
For more information see
http://ec.europa.eu/governance/better_r ... act_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/index_en.htm

- United Nations Development Program : Ex-Ante Policy Impact Assessment
http://europeandcis.undp.org/pia/
http://europeandcis.undp.org/home/show/ ... BF55E65117

- National sustainable development coordination bodies (e.g. Norway,
Canada, Switzerland, UK are some of the most advanced countries
regarding sustainability planning)

- World Bank, OECD and other international institutions


Gints Ozolins
Posted by Gints Ozolins <gints_ozolins@hotmail.com>
posting date Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:05:13 +0300
_______________________________________________

[""Jim Thompson"" <james.thomp]

Posted by ""Jim Thompson"" <james.thompson@strath.ac.uk>

Gints Ozolins suggests a strategic target for SD could be to
become officially accepted/recommended methodology for policy
impact assessment in the national and international policy making
institutions.

Doesn't the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis
(www.iiasa.ac.at/) do this now, at least at the international
level? If so, how could the Society and IIASA interact to grow
awareness of both?

JT
Posted by ""Jim Thompson"" <james.thompson@strath.ac.uk>
posting date Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:06:53 -0400
_______________________________________________

[Jay Forrester <jforestr@MIT.E]

Posted by Jay Forrester <jforestr@MIT.EDU>

On Jun 26, 2008, at 6:41 AM, SDMAIL Jack Harich wrote:
> For example, unless I missed something, where are the goal suggestions
> from the founder of the field,

In my talk at the 2007 annual conference of the Society, I discussed
the present plight of system dynamics and my vision of how we could
proceed over the next 50 years. The paper is published in the
Summer-Fall 2007 issue of the System Dynamics Review.

So far, I have seen almost no discussion or debate about the issues
raised in that paper. I hope that paper can serve as a basis for
considering the future of the Society. Can we hear from members on it?

Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management
Sloan School, MIT
Posted by Jay Forrester <jforestr@MIT.EDU>
posting date Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:02:33 -0400
_______________________________________________

[""Bob Cavana"" <Bob.Cavana@vu]

Posted by ""Bob Cavana"" <Bob.Cavana@vuw.ac.nz>

Hello Professor Forrester,

Thank you for drawing attention to the issues raised in your talk at the 2007
annual conference of the System Dynamics Society and published in the Summer-
Fall 2007 issue of the System Dynamics Review, regarding the present plight of
system dynamics and your vision of how we could proceed over the next 50 years.
I had planned to follow up on one of these issues ""education in system dynamics'
at the 2008 SD conference in Athens (at one of the new 'Development Papers'
stream.). Unfortunately i had to withdraw from attending that conference because
of teaching commitments at my university in July.

I had planned to discuss ""Developing academic programmes for 'Integrative' System
Dynamics"". It may be appropriate to provide a few extracts from my 'development
paper' to add to the discussion (which could also be followed up on at the Athens
conference (or perhaps at the Albequerque conference in 2009)):

""The purpose of my paper is also to contribute to the discussion regarding the
(tertiary) education requirements for academic programmes in system dynamics.
Currently not many fully integrated academic programmes (or academic departments)
in system dynamics (and systems studies) exist around the world. To some extent
this is because most universities are organised around disciplinary silos, and
'systems' people are submerged within them.
..
In the special issue of System Dynamics Review (SDR) commemorating the 50th
anniversary of system dynamics, Professor John Sterman (2007, p91) also draws
attention to the complexity and scope of the field of system dynamics now:
""Success creates other challenges. When I began studying system dynamics it
was still possible to read the entire literature in the field and to know nearly
everyone. That has long since ceased to be true. Today one can master only a small
fraction of the literature and know only a few of those working in the field.
Although undeniably a sign of progress, growth also creates pressures for
specialization and fragmentation that, while perhaps inevitable for any successful
science, are particularly ironic in a field that stresses the importance of a
holistic perspective, integrative cross-disciplinary theory and broad model
boundaries.""

This growth in the field makes it even more essential to get some sort of
acceptance of the appropriate body of knowledge that constitutes the field
of system dynamics, and to develop academic programmes at universities around
the world that cover this 'core knowledge'.

In the same special issue of SDR, the originator of the field of system dynamics,
Professor Jay Forrester (2007, p359-360) expresses his concern about the current
academic programmes in system dynamics: ""Many academic programs have been started
around system dynamics. Most seem to be focused on applications in management,
with many other fields getting far less attention. Much less has been done in
internal medicine, economics, government policies, and international politics.
Most of the academic programs have stagnated at the level of introductory courses
taught to students who have no expectation of developing expertise in the powerful
professional field of nonlinear feedback systems. We are turning out more and more
people who are led to believe that they have been taught system dynamics but who
have only a superficial and unworkable preview of the potential of the field.""

In the same article Forrester expresses further concern about the state of systems
programmes at all levels of the education system. He also asks the questions: ""When
might we expect to have universities of social system design? What public background
must be established to make a system dynamics profession possible? Who might be the
people to lead creation of a powerful systems education?"" (Forrester, 2007, p367).""


Forrester, JW (2007). System dynamics - the next fifty years. System Dynamics Review,
23(2/3): 359-370.

Sterman JD. (2007). Exploring the next great frontier: system dynamics at fifty.
System Dynamics Review, 23(2/3): 89-93.

I would like to suggest that the SDS Policy Council put together a small team of SD
academics and practitioners to develop a paper on 'academic programmes in System
Dynamics' that might be be helpful for the development of the field. Naturally there
are a number of great SD programmes around the world, but there is generally a lot of
difficulty getting 'System Dynamics' accepted as a legitimate discipline (and not
just a set of 'tools') outside of these well known institutions.

Any comments please.

all the best,
Bob

A/Prof Bob Cavana
Reader in Systems Management
Victoria Management School
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
Posted by ""Bob Cavana"" <Bob.Cavana@vuw.ac.nz>
posting date Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:13:12 +1200
_______________________________________________

[""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategyd]

Posted by ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>

Although responses to our call for aspirations for the field have been
few in number, some have addressed various of the issues raised in Jay's
paper on the next 50 years. Different contributions have expressed, for
example, a need to have degree programs teaching system dynamics, the
importance of getting work and citations in non-academic domains, the
need to build a constituency of people with influence, and work to grow
public awareness.

However, Jay is correct that the responses so far have been very few in
number, but also in the scope and ambition required. Even taken
together, they do not for example add up to the full-scale
infrastructure the paper calls for throughout all levels of the
education system, from K-12 to PhD.

Contributions are still welcome, including from those with the strong
expertise and experience that the paper indicates are so vital to taking
the field forward.

Kim
Posted by ""Kim Warren"" <Kim@strategydynamics.com>
posting date Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:07:46 +0100
_______________________________________________

[Richard Stevenson <rstevenson]

Posted by Richard Stevenson <rstevenson@valculus.com>

I know this won't get published, Bob. Because you won't pass it.

I have read the recent correspondence on strategy development with a
very limited degree of interest. This thread was instigated over six
months ago and initially received very little response. Those of us
that did respond (enthusiastically) were basically ignored.

There is now very little in this ""second wave"" that is worthy of
comment. Intrinsically, it seems that system dynamics will always
prefer to gaze at its own navel rather than to do anything constructive.

I really am sorry. Get on with it - or get over it. Most of the rest
of world has now moved on. And - SD people - it is your fault. Have a
good time in Athens.

But - SD Society - please understand. Your academic fumbling and
internal censorship has effectively destroyed a great idea.

Richard Stevenson
Valculus Ltd
Posted by Richard Stevenson <rstevenson@valculus.com>
posting date Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:04:34 +0100
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[""Johann Heymann"" <johann.he]

Posted by ""Johann Heymann"" <johann.heymann@fdg.co.za>

Hi All

Three objectives that I believe the SDS should pursue going forward are:

1. Developing a formal System Dynamics Body of Knowledge (SDBOK) s
imilar to the PMBOK of the project management fraternity;

2. Developing a SD practitioner maturity model; and

3. SD Certification.

Kind Regards

_______________________________________________

Johann Heymann
FIFTH DISCIPLINE CONSULTING (PTY) LTD
Posted by ""Johann Heymann"" <johann.heymann@fdg.co.za>
posting date Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:49:15 +0200
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[Bill Harris <bill_harris@faci]

Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>

""SDMAIL Johann Heymann"" <johann.heymann@fdg.co.za> writes:
> > 1. Developing a formal System Dynamics Body of Knowledge (SDBOK) s
> > imilar to the PMBOK of the project management fraternity;
> >
> > 2. Developing a SD practitioner maturity model; and
> >
> > 3. SD Certification.

Johann,

May I ask why?

We have much that is already known about our field, written up in many
good texts and papers. It would seem that the closest field to ours
isn't PM but control theory, and there is no CTBOK that I know of, nor
do I suspect there should be. While PM could be arguably said to be a
process, control theory is a field of applied engineering -- applying
ever-developing knowledge to real-world problems.

That said, I have concerns about codifying PM, as well, concerns that
are related to my comments about certification. I'm not in possession
of PMBOK, but I'm curious: does it include XP and Scrum? Does it
include critical chain theory? What is the process to include other
newly-developing work? How do you integrate or make sense of PRINCE2
versus PMBOK?

As a former software quality manager, I found some things attractive
about the CMM, but my overall impression was that it was a tool that
(just as perhaps we here) didn't start with where we were nor where we
needed to be but posited, in a vacuum, what we needed to do. I worried
that it might achieve good results at high cost compared to the action
research alternative we used successfully.

While I value competence, skill, and learning, I have real concerns
about certification.
http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/20 ... -well.html
summarizes them briefly: my fear is that it freezes us in the past
rather than helps us in the future.

In summary, my concerns are these:

- - The approaches you've mentioned seem focused internally, not
externally. While I agree with much of Jay's article (I may agree
with all of it, but I haven't re-read it in a while), I sense our
failure is to a significant degree because we haven't connected as a
field to customers where they are. Put in marketing terms, we seem
focused on outbound marketing, but we haven't done the inbound
marketing yet.

- - The approaches you've mentioned seem focused on limiting the field,
not expanding it.

- - The approaches you've mentioned seem focused on getting us to remember
the process. While there's much for us to keep in our heads when
doing this, in the Vygotskian sense, I gather that we're more often
puzzling than pattern matching because of the nature of the problems
we solve. (There are, of course, sub-problems that require pattern
matching.)

I realize I probably sound change-resistant in saying this, and I am
seriously curious as to the reasoning for your suggestions. I suspect
it's the belief that we, as PMs and others, can market ourselves if we
can only point to certain people and say, ""They're good (certified) at
this."" Yet most managers knew they needed PMs or PM skills; I don't
think they've broadly figured out they need SDers yet.

Thoughts?

Bill
Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:32:26 -0700
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