There are about a dozen known systems archetypes with an interesting set of relationships among them. Watch 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. There is a also a video for this insight.

Diagram from a paper by James B. Rieley entitled "The Euro Financial Crisis: Making Sense of the Mess".

The Reinforcing Loop Systems Archetype is one of the two most basic Systems Archetypes. The Balancing Loop being the other one.

A small change in one variable can have a marked impact on multiple variables. Run the model [quits change] = 0  and consider the output. What happens if  you change [quits change] = 5. Run the model to find out. Was the change what you expected?

As long as A and B are equally successful everything will remain stable. Though if either A or B receive more resources than the other, or A or B is more successful than the other, the imbalance will result in greater success of A or B accordingly and promote even more success of the one that demonstrates greater success.

Shifting the Burden/SFD is a segment of Systems Archetypes.

There are limits to what one can infer from a qualitative model.

New Learning tend to reduce Outdated Thinking, Communicating & Learning though our Outdated Thinking, Communicating & Learning inhibits new learning. The question is then how do we break this cycle. Adopted from "An Introduction to Systems Thinking with STELLA" by Barry Richmond.

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.

A Limits to Growth Systems Archetype consists of a Reinforcing Loop, the growth of which, after some success, is offset by the action of a Balancing Loop.

The interaction of a population of Moose and Wolves.

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.

Reinforcing Loop/SFD Simulation allow one to experience the explicit implications of the interactions.

What's the real difficulty associated with managing time?

Insight Maker is completely web based making it easy to develop and share models, allows concurrent multi-user editing, and just happens to be FREE, which a pretty good feature/price ratio.

CLD of Eric Wolstenholme Syst. Dyn. Rev. 23, 371–389, (2007) See IM-1008 for a stock flow version.

This model is derived from the paper "Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened: Creating and Sustaining Process Improvement" by Nelson P. Repenning and John D Sterman. See Insight 1899 for a simulation of this model.

Introduce the concept of modeling and simulation.

This is a model depicting the interactions of the Aesop's Fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."

Reinforcing Loop/SFD Simulation allow one to experience the explicit implications of the interactions.

Analysis has served us well in developing the understanding of things, at least to a point. Though analysis will not allow us to answer the why questions about things. For that we need synthesis. One might consider analysis and synthesis two sides of a coin that one shouldn't attempt to separate.

All you wanted to do was put a bird feeder in your yard to attract birds and make for a more pleasant morning. And...