QUERY Low Threshold System Dynamics (SD6329)

[SDMAIL Bill Harris]

Posted by  Bill Harris <bill_harris at facilitatedsystems.com>

Well, the title may be a bit misleading, but it's stimulated by the
recent discussions here about the use of SD in business and government.

I sometimes sense we make out SD to be a big deal: something one does
after a lot of education or training, something that takes a lot of time
and money to do (big projects), and something that requires our clients
or managers to buy into the process before we start (big programs).

While recognizing that there are some modeling efforts that are that
big, I conjecture that SD can make a big impact on a far more natural,
organic scale.  That is, I conjecture we can help others by using SD as
a natural part of the way we work, much as we use other decision-making
or problem-solving techniques as organic parts of our work processes.
In other words, we don't sell people on SD; we simply apply SD.

I conjecture that such an approach might do wonders for getting SD used
more if it's truly as useful as we seem to think; if it's not, we'll
find out naturally and quickly, and we can adapt.

>From reading about some of Jay Forrester's early work on yellow pads, I
sense that may be similar to how he started.

Instead of advocating this theoretically, I thought I'd share a
conversation I had recently that incorporated modeling as a relatively
natural component.  You can see it in a series I've started today on my
blog
(http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/2007/03/making-musical-sense-by-email-part-1.html).

I'd welcome your thoughts about the process we used as it unfolds on the
blog.  Either reply to this email, post your comments on the blog, or
send any you'd prefer to keep more private directly to me.

Thanks,

Bill
-- Bill Harris 
Facilitated Systems
Posted by  Bill Harris <bill_harris at facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date  Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:57:45 -0700