REPLY Society Strategy Development (SD7121)

[SDMAIL Richard.Dudley]

Posted by  <Richard.Dudley at attglobal.net>

It might indeed be worthwhile for readers to review the comments in
Forrester's 2007 paper in thinking about the society's strategy.  Two
responses to that paper, one by Jack Homer  and another by Yaman Barlas
(both in SDR Winter 2007) also deserve examination.  Both of these responses
emphasize the need to have quality communication with scientific and
technical communities. This is done both through high quality work and by
maintaining long term commitments to working in, and understanding, the
fields of application in which the SD work is carried out.   

In the past the consultancy approach has worked well (e.g. Roberts SDR
summer/fall 2007) because those SD practitioners also had a background in
business having come, to a large extent, from business schools, and the
business realm was where much of the consulting work in SD was done.   But
extending this approach to other fields will be different for reasons
pointed out by both Barlas and Homer: for lasting impact and influence one
needs to fully understand, or even be a part of, the field of application.

Thus, it may be sensible to consider Barlas' idea of promoting the housing
of SD academic programs in something like 'systems science' departments.
These could offer a major courses of study (for system dynamics
professionals) and minor courses of study for those with majors in technical
and other fields.   That is, a two pronged approach.

Thus one goal of the society's strategy (in terms of higher education) would
be to promote both high quality professional training in system dynamics and
also provide high quality system dynamics modeling training to professionals
in other fields.  

Of course this is easy to say, but harder to accomplish.  Nevertheless, many
larger universities have beginning level systems type courses scattered
throughout various departments. Seemingly the need for these courses is
apparent.  The next step is the coordination of these course offerings
(which I assume has been attempted) across departmental lines.   

Perhaps some who are already involved in this type of approach would like to
comment?

Richard
Posted by  <Richard.Dudley at attglobal.net>
posting date  Wed, 2 Jul 2008 08:18:30 +0700