Jackson's System of Systems Methodology (SOSM) framework presents a construct that enables one to begin to make sense of the broad array of approaches that claim to embrace the Systems Thinking paradigm.

The limits to growth structure is based on the basic growth structure. And, as should be obvious, nothing grows forever as growth requires resources. Those required resources become a limits to growth. See also Archetypes.

There are about fifteen known archetypes with an interesting set of relationships among them.

SystemsWiki's Musings

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.

The Exponential Growth Archetype is a reinforcing structure which promotes exponential growth. This is one of the two foundation archetypes. The other being the goal seeking structure. See also Archetypes.

Understanding relationships is the foundation of effective problem solving. Though relations exists on multiple levels.

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.

We often set out to solve a problem or accomplish some particular result and things seem to go as planned. As time progresses it seems that progress becomes more and more difficult, if not impossible, and things may actually become worse than when we started. When this happens it is typically a Fixes that Fail structure that's operating. See also Archetypes.

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The goal seeking structure endeavors to bring a balance between a current state and a desired state. This is one of the two foundation archetypes. The other being the growth structure. See also Archetypes.

Two goal seeking structures attempting to resolve and based on the delay one may tend to settle for less. See also Archetypes.

The Accidental Adversaries structure represents a situation where two interacting entities which should produce growth unwittingly limit the growth of each other because of their actions to promote their own growth. See also Archetypes.

When endeavoring to develop an understanding of the nature of something it is generally useful to create a model of some type to aid in surfacing that understanding.

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.

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An Addiction structure is the same as the Shifting the Burden structure though with the annoying aspect that one becomes addicted to the side effect ensuring that Fundamental Solution won't get implemented and the Symptomatic Solution will be applied repeatedly, and likely with greater frequency. See also Archetypes.

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.

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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.

Our actions are based on our beliefs and the results of those actions are the basis for our beliefs. The difficulty we create for ourselves is that we make assumptions as to how to interpret the results we select based on our beliefs. As a result we are often operating on a flawed perspective of reality.

An indecision structure results whenever there are two interacting goal-seeking structures which provide goals for each other. There is the potential of creating oscillations because of the inherent delays in the structure. See also Archetypes.

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This is a summary version of the theWay model which presents the essence of the overall model though not all the detailed pieces. It was created as a way to get a quick sense of all the pieces at once.

One question that I seem to be getting more and more often is "Should I do this in Insight Maker or Kumu?" At one time that was an easy answer, and still is for certain things, for others it's becoming more and more difficult.

A Growth and Underinvestment with a Drifting Standard structure is simply an elaborated Growth and Underinvestment structure where the growth inhibitor induces a decline of the standard over time. The real nasty thing about this structure is that the growth inhibitor influence sets up a Reinforcing Loop which even further promotes a drifting of the standard over time. See also Archetypes.

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.

Once the strategy is developed the relationship model must evolve to represent that implementation appropriately sequenced.