Systems Thinking Flashcards
4 Building Blocks of Systems Thinking
- Circles of Causality
- Reinforcing Feedback
- Delays
- Balancing Feedback
Tools for Systems Thinking and Modeling
- Dynamics: graph over time
2. Structure: Causal-loop Diagrams
The ability to ____ when there may be a systematic structure driving the results in one quality of a developed thinker
Sense
4 Steps in Systems Thinking
- Focus on a specific problem
- Identify the critical variables
- Graph the behavior of the key variables time (BOT)
- Develop a causal loop diagram
Causal Loop Construction: The Basics
- Create variable
- Draw the links
- Label the loop
- Talk through the loop
Is a causal relationship drawn from the cause to effect.
Link
The ____ of the link is placed by the
Arrowhead and tells the direction of change:
S = same direction
O= opposite direction
Sign
The ____ indicates the resulting nature of all the relationships in the loop: B = Balancing Loop
R= Reinforcing Loop
Loop Notation
Tells of the significant time lapse between cause and effect
Delay
Quality of quantity that can vary upward and downward.
Variable
The powerful tool for representing structure in complex systems.
Causal Mapping
It indicates causal influence.
Arrows
It shows the direction of Causality.
Positive and negative signs
+ = Direct relation
- = inverse relation
It exists when decision change the state of the system, changing the conditions and informations that influence future decisions.
Feedback Loop
2 Kinds of Feedback Loops
- Reinforcing loops
2. Counteracting loops
This is kind of feedback loops that are responsible for accelerating growth, accelerating decline, or traps due to inertia
Reinforcing Loops
Kind of feedback loops that are much more prevalent but often obvious; they balance and adapt.
Counteracting loops
“all else being equal” or?
Ceteris Paribus
Constructed by assuming ceteris peribus, or all else being equal when assessing the direction of change in a relationship.
Causal loops
Characteristics of Complex Systems
- Interconnected
- Dynamic
- Cause and effect
- Policy resistant
- Counterintuitive
- Long-run behavior
“Everything influences everything else”
Interconnected
Change occurs on many time scales (characteristics of complex system)
Dynamic
Obvious solutions fail or actually worsen the situations (char of complex systems)
Policy resistant
Systems Thinking helps us:
- Represent our own mental models
- Elicit the mental models of others
- Discuss and challenge ideas
- Reconcile model differences
Purpose of Systems Thinking
- Understanding how the system structure creates the behavior we observe
- Represent short and long-term effects of actions
- Anticipate the side effects of decisions
- Evaluate the consequences of alternatives
Effective leverage points are not so obvious
Counterintuitive
