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

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

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

Based on a sound realization of reality we need an effective approach to dealing with situations which promotes the requisite understanding to develop a strategy that deals appropriately with the situation. A strategy which also is explicitly designed to minimize unintended consequences and puts in place responses to them should they arise.

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

Introduce the concept of modeling and simulation.

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. As an example, consider multiple departments with an organization using IT resources, until they've exhausted IT capacity.

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.

Introduce the concept of modeling and simulation.

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.

If we pay close attention to our actions and the typical outcomes of those actions it would be evident that there are frequently occurring patterns that develop. And there is a relation between the patterns.

To develop insights regarding a situation of interest there are a number of things should be considered to ensure a view of the relevant influences.

To develop insights regarding a situation of interest there are a number of things should be considered to ensure a view of the relevant influences.

Clone of IM-752 map for working simulation model This model is derived from "Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened: Creating and Sustaining Process Improvement" by Nelson P. Repenning and John D Sterman. An expanded map is at IM-1918.

A quick example for creating a simulation in Insight Maker.

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

The Home Heating System can be used to demonstrate how we get caught in dilemmas and become victims of ourselves.

Introduce the concept of modeling and simulation.

Introduce the concept of modeling and simulation.

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.

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 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.

Balancing Loop with Stock & Flow Diagram.

Joe P. is currently managing a project that's behind schedule and he's experiencing substantial pressure to get the project back on track.