Success to the successful archetype represents two reinforcing structures which may be in a delicate balance though as soon as one gains a small advantage the resource allocation favors the more successful and the result is then rapidly skewed in the direction of the more successful. See also Archetypes.
To this point the Situation, Behavior, Model, Stakeholder and Boundary aspects of this situation have been investigated. It is now appropriate to consider the assumptions that have been made to this point and ensure we are on a solid foundation before proceeding to the Leverage and Strategy aspects are considered.
Bathtub model with filling control added. Running the model is essentially considered to be turning on the faucet and water will run into the bathtub until it is full.
A Tragedy of the Commons situation exists whenever two or more activities, each, which in order to produce results, rely on a shared limited resource. Results for these activities continue to develop as long as their use of the limited resource doesn't exceed the resource limit. Once this limit is reached the results produced by each activity are limited to the level at which the resource is replenished. See also Archetypes.
An escalation structure results from two or more competing entities with the competition taking them to somewhere none of them want to be. See also Archetypes.
OK, we have a problem. Yet, do we really know what the problem is? More often than not we look at the symptoms, consider them the problem and attempt to fix them. This actually dooms us to failure because they're only symptoms.
While understanding the interacting components responsible for the situation is important it is even more important to understand the stakeholders as they are the ones responsible for the interacting components being the way they are.
Developing a strategy for dealing with a situation begins with a description of the situation and the preferred state for today, not in some distant future, and the perceived implications of not doing anything.
A Growth and Underinvestment structure is simply an elaborated Limits to Growth structure where the growth inhibitor is part of another Balancing Loop with an external standard and some delay. The real nasty thing about this structure is that the two Balancing Loops form a single Reinforcing Loop which inhibits growth.
The problem with microworlds is that too often people simply learn to play the game and the deeper lessons associated with the underlying structure and its associated patterns of behavior are completely missed. It is more appropriate for people to build and work with models to develop a deeper understanding of the relationships and then relate them to family, community, school and the world.
Causal loop diagrams are more rigorous than rich pictures though are still only contain a very few elements with well defined rules for connecting them.
It's relatively well understood that you can't be all things to all people. Somewhere one has to make choices. An Attractiveness Principle Systems Archetype is essentially a Limits to Growth Systems Archetype with multiple limits, all of which can not be addressed equally. See also Archetypes.
This Loan Cost Model is the second in the series. It takes into account the potential cost of student loans in the case that the student does not manage to graduate college or does not succeed in their career.
Now that we have some context for the situation it's appropriate to begin to investigate, though possibly not where you might think. And the investigation is actually a bit hindered because management fired the accounts receivables department. What I'm really interested in is trends as to how things have evolved over time.
This common archetype of systems that include relapse or recidivism allows exploration of the unintended effects of increasing upstream capacity and swamping downstream capacity. The increase in the relapse rate eventually returns to swamp upstream capacity as well. A social welfare example, based on a TANF case study, from How Small System Dynamics Models Can Help the Policy Process. N. Ghaffarzadegan, J. Lyneis, GP Richardson. System Dynamics Review 27,1 (2011) 22-44 Conference version at http://bit.ly/HlxtZj
