Ventana software support forum

Hi Raj I am the Chairman of a Sydney based IT company. The most difficult dynamic issue we deal with where SD might be applied is sales evenue/cash flow forecasts. We have a relatively small number of customers but even then the variations between cash flow forecast and cash flow outcome is often en...

A good book on some of this type of thinking about relatedness and strategy is Quinns "Intelligent Enterprise", a Free Press book about 10 or so years old. Quite insightful about the way in which conglomerates can grow around expansion on related dimensions. Regards to all Paul Martin From...

Michael Fletchers comments re causation triggered a thought. The practical application of causation is directly explored in law (mainly civil but in some instances in criminal). Within that framework there has emerged a set of specific, probabalistic tests of causation beyond reasonable doubt or on ...

Sue Kilpatrick Ian Falk "Learning in agriculture : building social capital in island communities" IN:Local environment 8 (5, 2003) : 501-512 Social capital helps communities respond positively to change. Research in agricultural businesses and into managing change through learning in commu...

Whilst not precisely in the area you want, we did do some studies for the Australian Land & Water Corp using qualitative systems thinking to identify key issues for regulation and natural resource management, and directions for reform. One of them is on the download section of our website at htt...

Geoff Coyles response is a great comfort to me. I had thought that my ongoing inability to attach numerical values to many of these subjective choices was purely a failing on my part. Now I realise that the failings on my part are still there, but I need not beat myself up about it. What is of more ...

I am working with one of the peak healthcare bodies in Australia. The issue has come up about optimisation of a healthcare system, in particular how to determine the appropriate levels of government investment in prescribing and pharmacy advice about prescriptions. I recall a number of past postings...

To add a little bit to the posting from Zennie Abraham. Economics and System Dynamics have a lot in common. There are myriad models but often they compete in what they say are important and how they deal with the variables. They are both used to explain and predict. In both there is a substantial de...

A couple of years ago we embarked on a thinking experiment, forming part of a number of projects looking at strategies for sustainability, where we tried to create a systematic framework for understanding resource use decision making at three levels - the individual, the organisation and society- wi...

I am something of a neophyte in the use of computer based systems models (being a trier with Vensim at the lowest level of competence), but have been actively working on the use of systems thinking in a number of areas such as strategy development. I have a research project to which I am committed o...

There is an assumption in all of this that somehow experiment and failure is abnormal. The gold rush, the advent of the motor car, and a host of scientific endeavours, as well as the lessons of nature, all show that this is a normal method of progress. Whilst not wishing to discourage the thought ex...