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.
In addition to identifying the relevant stakeholders it is essential to understand which elements of the situation are relevant to which stakeholders. Often this is quite apparent and at times it's not so obvious.
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.
Integrating all the relevant elements in pursuit of a Systemic Strategy is an undertaking that will require diligent attention. You pursue an intent in a manner akin to meandering around in the dark without even a candle to guide your way. Along the way though you encounter aspects related to the situation that you are endeavoring to figure out how to deal with. And when you persist to actually evolving a Systemic Perspective, only then will there be light at the end of the tunnel, and you will have a sense of which direction the tracks should be laid to effect the alternative situation you are seeking.
This model is an attempt to understand the interactions within an economy in an attempt to determine where the leverage points are to stimulate an economy.
There exists a well defined set of possible ways to alter an existing set of interactions. Each of these alterations will produce a particular effect depending on the relations the change is relative to. Identifying which are possible and which will migrate the interactions to produce the desired situation is the essence of the strategy.
Because our problem solving approaches in today's reality don't produce very good solutions we end up continually dealing with unintended consequences which make the original problem worse or create new problems to be dealt with.
A Systems Archetype has a very well defined structure that produces a characteristic pattern of behavior and there are well defined strategies for dealing with the structure.
This model introduces the S/O and +/- notation for depicting the relations that might exist between two elements along with why the +/- notation is preferred.
You've probably heard the comment "It's the economy stupid!" Well I've finally concluded that when it comes to the economy "It's stupidity stupid!" might be a more appropriate phrase.
