6h MIT-UAlbany System Dynamics Ph.D. Colloquium
May 2, 2003
MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA

Organizers: Gokhan Dogan (MIT) and Ignacio Martinez(UAlbany)

Time Presenter Topic University
9.00am-9.15am Gokhan Dogan Introduction and welcome MIT
9.15am-9.50am Florian Kapmeier Dynamics of Interorganizational Learning Stuttgart University
9.55am-10.30am Ignacio Martinez Rule dynamic toward a theory of rule evolution SUNY-Albany
10.40am-11.05pm Brendan Miller Choosing Our Destiny: The Use of Systems Dynamics and Organizational Learning in Community Planning for a Sustainable Future MIT Sloan School of Management- Harvard Kennedy School of Government
11.10pm-11.45pm Burak Guneralp Structural Analysis of System Dynamics Models Under Parameter
Uncertainty 		University of Illinios-Urbana Champaign
12.00pm-12.55pm Kim Vicente "What Does It Take? A Case Study of Radical Change in Patient Safety Culture” Jerome Clarke Hunsaker Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, MIT
1.00pm-2.30pm   Lunch  
2.35pm- 3.15pm Aldo Zagonel Using group model building to inform welfare reform policy making in New York State SUNY-Albany
3.25pm- 4.05pm Silvia Ulli-Beer Modeling citizens' choices and preferences to separate solid waste SUNY-Albany
4.15pm- 4.55pm Mila Getmansky Liquidity issues and Hedge Funds MIT Sloan School of Management

Abstracts of some of the presentations

1) Burak Guneralp - Structural Analysis of System Dynamics Models Under Parameter Uncertainty

Most parameter values employed in models are imperfect estimates of their true values. Sensitivities in a model to such uncertainties can vary significantly both in time and space. Understanding which parameters highly influence model behavior helps to focus new parameterization efforts. In this research, important processes in the model will be identified using a combination of eigenvalue and Monte Carlo simulation analyses. The effect of uncertainty in each significant parameter on model behavior will be analyzed through error budgets. This study will also attempt to firmly establish the importance of feedback loop concept in the forest -modeling- literature.

2) Brendan Miller - Choosing Our Destiny: The Use of Systems Dynamics and Organizational Learning in Community Planning for a Sustainable Future

This paper presents a framework for structuring community planning for a sustainable future and describes a process jointly developed and piloted by the author and The Boston Foundation, implementing the framework for the Greater Boston region. This novel framework, which draws from system dynamics modeling and organizational learning, builds on the community indicators movement and may have great potential to create the shared understanding and political will necessary to move communities powerfully and quickly towards sustainability.

3) Aldo Zagonel - Using group model building to inform welfare reform policy making in New York State

There is a growing practice of building system dynamics models directly with groups. This practice “termed group model building (GMB)“ requires skillful combination of problem analysis and group facilitation. This presentation provides an overview of an applied research project using this approach, to model and analyze a complex social issue in the public sector. It provides a synopsis of this intervention involving three counties in New York State. It reports how GMB was used to inform welfare reform policy-making, from the perspective of the participating management teams. It is focused upon the final product of this intervention “a system dynamics model used to experiment with management strategies and to explore scenarios. It addresses the policy aspect of the research, in the context of the model elicited, built, simulated, evaluated, tested and extensively used throughout this intervention. It aims towards a discussion of the limitations of these results in terms of policy analysis and organizational redesign.

Last edited by NG 12/04/09