Investigations into the relationships responsible for the success and failure of nations. This investigation was prompted after reading numerous references on the subject and perceiving that *Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty* by Acemoglu and Robinson seem to make a great deal of sense.
There is much we can learn from the development of qualitative relationships models though once we begin to ask questions like how long, how much, when, etc., a qualitative most is not likely to be of much use. The following video demonstrates how, in a very simple goal-seeking structure with delay, depending on the delay, it can be almost impossible to intuit the implications of the interactions with any level of accuracy. The difficulty arises essentially from operating with outdated data. See also Archetypes.
The simple savings account is used to demonstrate the nature of a reinforcing loop. Change the initial amount and interest rate and run the model to see the implications of changing these values.
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.
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.
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.
Investigations into the relationships responsible for the success and failure of nations. This investigation was prompted after reading numerous references on the subject and perceiving that *Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty* by Acemoglu and Robinson seem to make a great deal of sense.
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.
Faced with a performance gap the two most obvious responses are to work harder or work smarter. There are trade offs associated with each, some obvious, some not so obvious.
Leverage Point Modeling (LPM) is a demonstrated approach for improved planning and spending for Operations and Support (O&S) activities. LPM is a continuous-event simulation technique that uses the System Dynamics approach of model building. Dr. Nathaniel Mass championed the potential of LPM, and adapted it for the Department of Defense (DoD) as a tool for jumping to a higher performance curve as a means of offsetting higher costs and declining budgets. The purpose of LPM is to test policies and investments that improve mission capability for a given level of investment or funding. It is particularly used to evaluate investments in component reliability and parts availability. Ref: http://bit.ly/aT44kB
