Taking A Dynamic Perspective

System dynamics is concerned with the behavior of a system over time. A critical step in examining a system or issue is to identify its key patterns of behavior - what we often refer to as "time paths." In this section, we examine the meaning of a time path and consider the general types commonly found in dynamic systems. To provide a "real life" grounding to this discussion, several time path examples reproduced from books, newspapers, and magazines are presented.