The interaction of a population of Moose and Wolves.

Consider the following "Sustaining the Forest" model intended to provide another example of how unexpected the behavior of a web of extended interactions can be.

While all things are related for a particular situation all things are not relevant. We need to develop a simplified model of reality which depicts those interactions which are responsible for the patterns of behavior and current situation. We want the simplest model which enables the requisite understanding. This is no easy task though.

Yesterday's actions are responsible for the world we experience today. And today's actions are responsible for the world that we will experience tomorrow. The "Creating the Future" model is intended to provide a better sense of the common process associated with the unexpected unfolding of the future..

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

Thoughts on why storytelling is critical for enabling others to understand relationship models once they're developed. This was done for the Learning Community Group at ODU Mar 2019.

The situation Big Box Distribution considers to be a problem is an average accounts receivable period which is considered unacceptable as it is costing them money.

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.

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.

Network Magic's rapid growth creates a growing demand for resources. And the more they satisfy their customers the more difficult the problem becomes.

Video

Imagine you could create anything you chose with the existing technology and resources. What would it be?

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.

Network Magic is high tech start up growing rapidly and having difficulty developing resources to respond to customer demand.

Video

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.

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.

Video

@LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube

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.

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.

Investigating the behavior of several variables over time has probably raised more questions than answers. As such now it's time to investigate what else might be influencing the trending of these variables.

Thoughts on why storytelling is critical for enabling others to understand relationship models once they're developed. This was done for the Disruptive Innovation Festival (DIF) 2018.

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.