QUERY Let Talk Buckets
Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 12:08 pm
Posted by Anupam Saraph <anupamsaraph@gmail.com>
[Uknown Source:] ""Business Types Get a New Kick Out of the 'Bucket' -
Executives Utter the Word To Describe Groups,
Units; 'Silo' Pales in Comparison""
[Th]is hardly new for those who think in stocks and flows- We look at the stocks as buckets all the time.
Is it time to add taps and drains to the bucket vocabulary to help people make the connections to the dynamics of bucket filling up or emptying? Time to bring into colloquial vocabulary the notions that you can fill the bucket by opening taps or closing drains? Time to help people to ask what can open the taps or close the drains?
I am sure many of us have observed the ""aha"" from even school children who are explained the ""buckets"" of traffic in a city (roads), ""buckets"" of emotions (love, anger, etc.), ""buckets"" of people in the town (buckets of age-groups- or perhaps of different skills and professions) or even global warming (""buckets"" of gasses in the atmosphere)...
And those of us who have facilitated reengineering recognize that it results in new ""buckets"" or reducing old ones as much as it creates new ""policies"" (as defined in Forrester-speak) for regulating the volume of ""stuff"" in the ""buckets"".
Currently are we losing out by having people use jargon that means too many different intangible things to different disciplines, methods and to the world? Right from the word system, policy or
feedback- different disciplines have different meanings for all of these, the idea is lost while the word remains.
It's sooo hard for most people to think of some invisible forces to drive changes in variables they may not even accept as being
important- We all love to ""see"" and ""feel"" the world. Is it time to leverage our physical understanding of the ""bucket"" to get the world thinking ""systems""? Even help them see a ""system"" as collection of connected buckets?
Anupam
Clinical Professor,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Posted by Anupam Saraph <anupamsaraph@gmail.com>
posting date Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:41:29 -0400
_______________________________________________
[Uknown Source:] ""Business Types Get a New Kick Out of the 'Bucket' -
Executives Utter the Word To Describe Groups,
Units; 'Silo' Pales in Comparison""
[Th]is hardly new for those who think in stocks and flows- We look at the stocks as buckets all the time.
Is it time to add taps and drains to the bucket vocabulary to help people make the connections to the dynamics of bucket filling up or emptying? Time to bring into colloquial vocabulary the notions that you can fill the bucket by opening taps or closing drains? Time to help people to ask what can open the taps or close the drains?
I am sure many of us have observed the ""aha"" from even school children who are explained the ""buckets"" of traffic in a city (roads), ""buckets"" of emotions (love, anger, etc.), ""buckets"" of people in the town (buckets of age-groups- or perhaps of different skills and professions) or even global warming (""buckets"" of gasses in the atmosphere)...
And those of us who have facilitated reengineering recognize that it results in new ""buckets"" or reducing old ones as much as it creates new ""policies"" (as defined in Forrester-speak) for regulating the volume of ""stuff"" in the ""buckets"".
Currently are we losing out by having people use jargon that means too many different intangible things to different disciplines, methods and to the world? Right from the word system, policy or
feedback- different disciplines have different meanings for all of these, the idea is lost while the word remains.
It's sooo hard for most people to think of some invisible forces to drive changes in variables they may not even accept as being
important- We all love to ""see"" and ""feel"" the world. Is it time to leverage our physical understanding of the ""bucket"" to get the world thinking ""systems""? Even help them see a ""system"" as collection of connected buckets?
Anupam
Clinical Professor,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Posted by Anupam Saraph <anupamsaraph@gmail.com>
posting date Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:41:29 -0400
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