REPLY Open and Resolved Issues in SD (SD7054)

[SDMAIL Jack Harich]

Posted by  Jack Harich <register at thwink.org>

> Posted by  Bill Braun <bbraun at hlthsys.com>
> I found the statement thoughtfully provocative and it prompts me to 
> ask (generously, not contentiously), what are the unanswered 
> questions? After the seminal SD works, 23 years of the SDR, and the 
> many books in between, what dimension of SD (as an art and a science) 
> needs more conversation?

Thanks Bill. I found this to be a tantalizing productive question, and 
have been pondering it.

*Question A* - What are the great unanswered questions and unresolved 
issues of SD?

As in all important endeavors fraught with the unknown, it is strategy 
that makes the difference, not tactics. So how can we best look at 
Bill's question strategically?

This brings us right back to what Jim Lyneis and Kim Warren are 
currently attempting to do: "develop a vision and strategy for the next 
50 years." The first step here was Kim's suggestion that we "consider 
the following question:"

*Question B* - "It is 2028, and a special global gathering has been 
organised
with no other purpose than to celebrate the outstanding progress that 
system
dynamics has made since 2008. What achievements would make you - and
[importantly] outside observers - feel that this celebration is totally
justified, and how would you measure each of those achievements?"

Question B is a goals brainstorming exercise. Question A is a key issues 
identification exercise. It has the potential to supplement question B 
considerably, as well as to help us develop a vision and strategy.

So here's what I see as the key strategic open issues/unanswered 
questions in SD:

*Question 1* - Why, despite the clear potential of the tool, has SD 
failed to have more than a negligible impact on the world? Why has it 
not become a key, integral part of social and business problem management?

* Question 2* - Is there a missing greater whole or abstraction that, if 
present, would make it an order of magnitude easier for SD to achieve 
its potential?

At the strategic level, these two questions may be all we need to get 
started. Any more reduces focus.

The first question, why has SD failed to have an impact, is diagnosis. 
This must come first. If we don't know why we have failed, then we have 
little hope of changing the underlying causes of failure, and we will 
continue to fail, no matter how clever, plausible, and inspiring our 
vision and plan may appear to be.

The second question, is there a missing abstraction, is a "bust out of 
old ways of thinking" question. We need to leave much of our present 
paradigm behind, sort of like a lizard shedding his skin. The question 
forces us to realize that something here is probably very incomplete. 
Only half the cookie is there, maybe even a lot less. This is because if 
you examine the history of major scientific and technological 
discoveries, what you see is many small contributing components whose 
impact could not be realized until they were able to be integrated into 
a new, major abstraction that turned night into day. It's possible that 
is what we have not yet discovered here.

Examples of what the missing abstraction could be are:

- A critical mass of integrated tools is needed. The suite is 
incomplete. Compare the tools available to solve dynamic social/business 
problems to those available to solve problems in physics, chemistry, 
mathematics, quality control (the Six Sigma set of tools), dysfunctional 
human behavior, etc.

- Complex social system problem solvers find solving such problems 
difficult because they have never settled on a standard basic process 
that the field could continuously improve. Imagine how deep and complete 
the process would be if we had been improving it for 50 years. It would 
be on a par with the process of medical diagnosis and treatment, 
financial planning, project management, forensic analysis of various 
kinds, or similar areas that are now so mature and standardized they can 
be easily taught and mastered.

- There is an unidentified field. Is it social system engineering? Is 
that what we should be thinking in terms of, instead of system dynamics? 
Isn't that closer to the (possible) goal of the capability to solve 
large, pressing problems of a social or business nature? And of course, 
why differentiate between social and business problems? Why not return 
to the original concept that both are social problems? The convenient 
that's-where-the-money-is distinction may be blinding us to where our 
focus should be.

- We are not yet modeling the equivalent of gravity, electricity or 
molecules. That is, we have not yet discovered what is the fundamental 
unit(s) of the field of complex system social problem solving. Is it 
memes? Is this what flows through social systems, and causes natural and 
artificial social agents to do what they do, more than anything else? 
For those unfamiliar with memes, please see:
http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/Meme.htm

Is another fundamental unit standard types of social agents? It may very 
well be, because memes flow from agent to agent. Individual or groups of 
agents are the key stocks in "soft" problems, and memes are the key 
flow, because in difficult modern problems, it is the flow of memes that 
affects agent behavior more than anything else.

The diagnostic question should be answered long before the missing 
abstraction question. Once we know the root causes of long term failure 
of SD to achieve its potential, then there will be many clear, strong 
clues about what the missing abstraction(s) may be.

And then, suddenly, all may be light.

Jack
Posted by  Jack Harich <register at thwink.org>
posting date  Sat, 24 May 2008 07:34:22 -0400