SUMMARY SD Impact on National Government policies (SD6256)

[System Dynamics Mailing List]

Posted by  "Louis Macovsky" <dynbiosys at verizon.net>

I am very pleased at the response to my original posting.  Going through the 
thread I tried to capture some of the suggestions as to steps to take to 
pursue the penetration of SD into governmental policy making.  Below is a 
consolidation of suggestions made through this thread.  No need to send replies 
in that most were discussed in the thread.  I apologize if I missed someone's 
suggestions.

I would like to suggest that these be discussed at the Boston SDS conference 
this year with the outcome producing real steps toward making our tools better
 known and used in the circles of government.

--------Lou

  1.. Update the "Future of the Field" dated 2001 to include a collective SDS effort to influence government policy. 
  2.. Create a Government Policy Special Interest Group. 
  3.. Sponsor SD Fellows to government representatives, including the UN. 
  4.. Send White Papers to governments from the SDS. 
  5.. Initiate SDS Open Source Projects (e.g., collaborative papers and models) that will have relevance to government policies. 
  6.. Task the Policy Council to contact government representatives when the SDS identifies relevant materials. 
  7.. Sponsor high school and undergraduate summer (or school year capstone - 
  undergraduate projects) internships in the offices of public servants (all 
  levels - city, state, and federal) and distribute these around the country. 
  The intern would have close mentorship of their instructors and local 
  practioners of SD.  Not only would the students benefit but also long-term 
  relationships might be forged between governing bodies and the mentors. 
  8.. I suggest a panel for ISDC 2007 in Boston to generate possibilities for 
  approaching policy makers and proposing pilot or demonstration projects 
  in their favorite areas (e.g., Sen. Sherrod Brown and healthcare). 
  9.. I would like to suggest that the SD community respond at the 25th International Conference of the SDS.  Perhaps an open panel discussion. 
    1.. The challenge would be to frame a question that a panel 
    could productively discuss and then attract the right discussants. 
    2.. Rigorous definitions and a thorough literature search would be useful 
    groundwork for the proposed discussion. 
    3.. A session to model the question - How can SDS reinforce the growth of SD methodologies in government policy decisions? 
  10.. I believe that those in government are not the proper target. Instead we 
  should be addressing the public with clarifying insights about the major 
  problems of a country. 
  11.. The field needs a series of penetrating, provocative, insightful books that 
  address uppermost issues of public concern.  These books must be addressed 
  to the public and have the clarity and content that will attract newspaper 
  debate (or these days it may be Internet debate).  I believe that journal 
  articles in the professional press will not reach the appropriate audiences. 
    1.. Perhaps the system dynamics field is focusing too much on itself and its academic audience and not enough on public issues for the public. 
    2.. .our problem is the shortage of very advanced and skilled 
    practitioners of system dynamics who are willing to carry system dynamics into the public policy debate, not among "policy makers," but into the general public from which it will seep into governments. 
    3.. I agree that it would be extremely useful to see books written to 
    convey to the public how SD thinking and modeling can produce results that are counterintuitive, and to relate some of the many "success stories" 
    resulting from implementation of the output of SD models.  In beginning to read the work of Prof. Forrester and others on the impact of SD principles in business and urban planning, I was struck by the apparent lack of such books to date. 
    4.. In addition to the topics that Dr. Forrester mentions as popular book
    topics, healthcare should be considered.  Members of the Health Policy
    Special Interest Group of the System Dynamics Society are pursuing research that could lead to such a publication. 
    5.. .publishing for lay person, on topics of immediate relevancy, is necessary. 
    6.. While there's no harm in writing in ways that appeal to different viewpoints, there's also no reason to discourage people from writing from a fearlessly SD viewpoint.  Personally, I'd like to see more writing that is powerful and new enough to stir up controversy. 
  12.. Monograph series of reviews, case histories and examples per topic or directed at a branch(es) of government. 
  13.. Perhaps to engage the public in the 21st century we might need to shift our focus from books to movies and other forms of online visual interaction like videogames. 
  14.. What if WE included SDS, the INCOSE, www.incose.org, the SDPS, www.sdpsnet.org, and ISSS, www.isss.org,  then perhaps a greater effect could be generated.  Could four "professional societies" really act to the benefit of their constituents? 
  15.. Convince decision makers (in government, education, business,
  environment, etc.) of the unique benefits of SD modeling (assuming that we
  can clearly articulate what those benefits are!) 
    1.. Provide such decision makers easy access to SD practitioners who, for
    reasonable fees, can build SD models. 
    2.. Then, teach these decision makers to interpret and understand SD
    modeling results well enough to be able to use such results in their
    decision making. 
  16.. We need someone like GE's Jack Welch -- someone with clout in the larger
  community -- to continually bang the drum (to change musical metaphors a
  bit) for SD.  [Fat chance we can create this without a huge dose of luck.] 
  17.. We need to make more of the successes we achieve. 
  18.. We need to make SD simplifiable 
    1.. What I'm saying, I suppose, is that creating an easy-to-understand
    explanation of the benefits of using SD is a non-trivial exercise that we
    ought to engage in (again). 
  19.. I kept getting the image of the reliability analyst or performance analyst on a large project who sits in the corner, finally gets enough information to construct his/her model and simulation scenarios then, by the time results are available finds the 
  project is already through system test and deployed. 
    1.. An alternative scenario would have an SD-capable person on staff to each legislator.  Also, they will belong to a Community of Purposeful Practice.  This community would be  the linkage to public interest groups also 'speaking' SD. 
  20.. .it would be useful if the Congressional Research Service (who use all 
  sorts of tools) produced SD diagrams of the implications of speeches made 
  each day and of new bills and amendments thereto.  Bills have loopholes. 
  Amendments are the main carriers of Unintended Consequences. 
  21.. The hypothesis: If high school students versed in system dynamics use these
  skills through the school's Community Service Program to facilitate discussion by local civic organizations, then community support for the teaching of system dynamics will increase; the number of students learning
  system dynamics will increase along with the amount of time and interest
  they devote to the subject; their skills at facilitating discussion and
  teaching system dynamics to adult community leaders will increase; community
  support for teaching system dynamics in the schools will further increase,
  etc. (Full and detailed explanation in post SD6144) 
  22.. "Life Cycle of a Silver Bullet", which addresses not how ideas get started 
  necessarily, but how they progress from a good idea to the popular 
  thing to old hat, ... it is on line at http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/Crosstalk/2003/07/sheard.html 
  23.. Having pondered the underwhelming impact of SD on Health Policy over 
  the years, there are two things I have been exploring..... 
    1.. How exactly does policy happen and how can we make this better?
       IMHO, John Kingdon's work, is a good place to start here 
       (see http://www.rhpeo.org/reviews/2003/1/index.htm 
    2.. As well as using SD to see what is possible, how can we improve 
       its capacity to also show what is possible? Again Edward Tufte's 
       new book Beautiful Evidence http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_be has inspired me to focus 
       again on this area of dynamic evidence displays through the use 
       of compelling and engaging animations. 
  24.. If we want to have these conversations with more well-placed audiences, I suggest we need to do more listening than talking.
      _SPIN® Selling_ offers some suggestions. 
  25.. It seems to me being effective involves learning how to get into power positions ourselves or how to connect with those already in power positions effectively.  See http://preview.tinyurl.com/y3qul3 for perhaps one piece of the puzzle. 
  26.. As a first step in this direction I propose to convince policy makers that they 
  need a new tool: DYNAMIC MONITORING. (see post SD6157) 
  27.. I really think the SD community needs to bring to the wider attention of 
  Governments at all levels, Professor Jay Forrester's seminal article, "The 
  Counterintutive Behavior of Social Systems", 
  http://web.mit.edu/sdg/www/D-4468-2.Counterintuitive.pdf 
    1.. This should be compulsory reading for all who would enter politics, public 
    service education and business. 
  28.. What publications should people on this list be targeting for articles?
  Why? How?  (e.g the New York Times Op Ed page? A blog somewhere?). 
    1.. That's why I think effectual reasoning may be appropriate in this case.  See http://preview.tinyurl.com/y3qul3, or just do something, and see what happens. 
  29.. Let's buckle down to do what a small field must do if it is to succeed: Stop tilting at windmills on our own, and work and publish collaboratively with people from other fields, esp. experts in application areas. 
  30.. successful SD intervention requires high energy, motivation, intelligence, a
  strong sense of purpose, a pioneering spirit, an ability to take risks, and
  a passion for innovation and problem solving. 
  31.. I think Forrester's call for K12 education in SD is very important. Much 
  work is needed to succeed; we have just started. 
 

Some of the Concerns:

  1.. A number of problems about widening SD's influence seem to arise in the
  Business SIG: 
    1.. - maintaining client confidentiality, or protecting the advantage they
    paid for 
    2.. - not wanting others to steal our ideas, and then clients 
    3.. - perhaps people are too modest about the work they do 
    4.. - and then everyone is so busy too! 
  2.. There doesn't seem much alternative but to 'publish, publish, and publish' -
  and not to each other but to the wider world, emphasizing the SD
  content. . But it is pretty tough to keep that treadmill turning.  
  3.. "Economists coming into direct contact with government decision making
  have found that they cannot limit their role to that of neutral technicians; to do so would be to make themselves irrelevant and ultimately excluded." 
  4.. Given the examples and prior experience with business and urban planning, it seems to me that  there is something to be gained by asking whether government  executives can apply SD methods to improve the way in which their  agencies or offices function.  I would be interested in the input of  the SD community:  is this issue separable from the larger issue of  SD modeling of public policy?  As I think about it, it occurs to me that there may not be much value, and in fact there may be great  detriment, to a governmental system's more efficiently carrying out  policies that are counterproductive to start with! 
  5.. And my only reflection after showing SD to executives is that people do not want 
  complex solutions, they want just solutions!!! 
  6.. If we sell SD and simulation as _the_ way to go, then we become the analogy of the simulator vendors.  That's fine, if that's where we want to be, but we're even more removed from the major decisions that way. 
  7.. One factor in the slow uptake is that SD preaches a message that many still do not want to hear and maybe the reason that it is taking off in health more rapidly than in others areas is that the sector is being confronted with the rising tide of chronic disease 
  8.. There is an immediate distrust of any model built in a short time - it must be too simple!!  The fact that one of the big skills of the modeller is to abstract the problem to an appropriate level is lost on most (including some modellers). 
  9.. limited willingness to depart from the traditional problem-solving recipes and tools, a dynamic that ironically increases the risk of policy failure 
  10.. From my limited observation, pushing 
  hard on the simulation modelling side without preparing the ground first leads 
  to resistance (given the time pressures, mental models about analytical 
  approaches etc). 
  11.. We all work with SD to solve complex problems. The non adoption of SD by
  governments in policymaking seems like a complex problem to me. Most the
  responses I read offer linear explanations just like you would hear from
  people who don't follow SD or have linear view of the world. 
  12.. Government agencies therefore will never buy an SD solution because someone
  thinks it is a good idea.  They will buy it when the dopamine starts to
  flush the neurons generating the right feelings about SD. (SD6176) 
  13.. If SD really is as powerful as its practitioners believe, we need to  question 
  why most business managers are still ignorant and  disinterested.  I suggest a 
  number of reasons that are largely the  responsibility of SD's own proponents 
  and practitioners. 
    1.. Incomprehension and ingrained resistance to systemic thinking in the     business world, 
    2.. Lack of standards and inconsistent behaviour within the "SD community" 
     itself, 
    3.. Conflicting SD software standards and damaging competition  between software vendors, 
    4.. Poor consulting practices and fragmentation across the consulting 
     industry, 
    5.. Lack of market focus in developing SD applications 
  14.. Finally, as many on this list have said over the years, as long as we sell 
  SD we fail. When we sell solutions to others' problems we succeed. 


Posted by  "Louis Macovsky" <dynbiosys at verizon.net>
posting date  Sun, 11 Feb 2007 13:31:42 -0800