Systems Thinking World

The network of connections made on an ongoing basis.

Present the definition and utility of an archetypes as well as what the archetypes are.

Surfaces noteworthy relationships and their implications, to provoke thought, foster deeper understanding, create insights, and enable more effective action.

Experiences of a company trying to manage their average accounts receivable period to an acceptable level.

Limits to Growth Archetypes

A description of the dynamics of the bathtub model and why most people don't understand dynamics.

An example of how the most obvious answers to diminish protests just makes matters worse.

Circular Economy Model

Given a performance gap this model investigates the implications of working harder or working smarter.

Fixes that Fail Archetype

Goal Seeking with Delay Archetype

Shifting the Burden Archetype

Surfaces the structure and behavior of the Goal Seeking archetype.

Investigation of the relationships responsible for the failure of nations.

Surfaces the structure and behavior of the Exponential Growth Archetype

An elaboration of the model from Ezar Klein's "Why Politics Makes Us Stupid" article.

This model investigates the influences which currently work in opposition to sustainable capitalism. The model then presents a view that might actually promote sustainable capitalism.

How to spot a revolution in the making from a Ben Franklin correspondence.

The typical response to road congestion in time simply makes matters worse.

Teacher cheating on standardized tests is a recurring theme in recent national headlines, ranging from teachers looking at tests in advance to develop study guides, to teachers and administrators erasing and correcting student answers after they have submitted tests. The media and the school communities have responded to these stories with shock and out-rage, often vilifying individual teachers and administrators.

In this piece, we explore the counter intuitive nature of systems where the best of intentions to address the homelessness situation using the most expedient approach is likely to make things even worse.

How we address symptoms and avoid real lasting solutions.

Economic Sector Model

The evolution of a model started by Geoff McDonnell based on the May 2014 special issue of Science.

The Enabling Virtual Collaboration (EVC) Project is a collaborative endeavor to figure out how to curate virtual collaboration endeavors. That is, undertaking to develop a systemic understanding of complex situations and evolve strategies for improving the situation with a high likelihood of avoiding unintended consequences, and doing this with a group of collaborators who are geographically distributed and only able to contribute asynchronously on a periodic basis.

How the development of a relationship model promotes understanding and insights as a basis for more effective action dealing with a situation.

Small collection of example maps

Simulation with Insight Maker

Storytelling with Kumu

Investigation into why we're not all rich

Seldom is the problem where it appears to be. Investigating the relationships that I never thought about that got me to this predicament.

Are we victims of the system or are we just dealing with systems of the victim.

The Certified Systems Thinker Program presents what is considered the absolute essential understanding and skills necessary to develop a systemic perspective for situations of interest. This Systemic Perspective provides a basis for deeper understanding, insights and more effective action. The intent is to enable one to be more effective dealing with situations, while reducing the likelihood of creating unintended consequences making matters worse, or creating new problems in the process.

Implications of interactions with a larger system that might initially be considered.

The Essence of AND?

A relationship model which is considered to be at the center of Google's business strategy. Admittedly this is only a perspective as I've not seen it published.

Aesop's Fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf as an unfolding set of relationships and their implications.

Unexpected implications of acting to respond to tax revenue pressure

The insights arrived at when participants in the Certified Systems Thinker program asked how to sell systems thinking to their organization.

Storytelling with Insight Maker

The relentless pursuit of having less.

Project Systems: Distinguishing Fact From Fantasy

Given a situation where the expected completion data for a project is later than the prescribed deadline what are the options available for the project to get it back on track.

An investigation into the ways we create context that creates poverty. This is also intended to be an example of how the content of articles actually have a systemic structure which may be expressed as one or more stories in relationship models.

Oil System Model from James Breaus

Investigation the extent to which time management actually helps us deal with our lack of time available.

More often than not we set out to accomplish some goal and it ends up taking far longer than we thought it would. The most common reason for this is that we've misunderstood the effect one or more limits have on the action taken to attain the goal. This is representative of the Limits to Action Archetype.

A parallel to the Casual Relationships model in Insight Maker.

Why is it that changes often return to the way they were before you stopped working on them. Why the jungle always seems to win!

It's one reason we're poorer than our parents.

An informative version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf with Storytelling created specifically for the Storytelling with Kumu course.

This is just a small project to hold all the presentation splash pages that don't really go with Kumu presentations.

Kumu Help intended to enable one to find that tidbit of information that demonstrates how to do what they want to do when they want to do it.

Insight Maker User's Guide

Level of Documentation Depends on Intent

A not so informative version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf created specifically for the Storytelling with Kumu course.

More often than not we set out to accomplish some goal and it ends up taking far longer than we thought it would. The most common reason for this is that we've misunderstood the effect one or more limits have on the action taken to attain the goal. This is representative of the Limits to Action Archetype.

An overview of the structure of the Kumu environment with additional maps as appropriate to explain concepts covered along the way.

Escalation Archetype

Tragedy of the Commons Archetype

Indecision Archtype

Success to the Successful Archetype

Attractiveness Principle Archetype

Addiction Archetype

Accidental Adversaries Archetype

Growth and Underinvestment with a Drifting Standard Archetype

Growth and Underinvestment Archetype

Interconnectedness of World Problems. Our future in a nutshell?

An investigation into influences driving the changes in oil prices the beginning of 2016.

Systemigrams

Polarity Map Diagram

Flying Logic Diagrams

A short history of the relentless pursuit of an approach to shared understanding.

The implications associated with setting goals which makes the activity self-limiting.

A way that starting farmers markets may backfire

Relationship Map

Rich Picture Diagram.

An example of how developing an expertise is shifted to presales support.

Often actions taken to reduce poverty do just opposite, making matters even worse.

How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change

The basic structure of this insight applies across industry boundaries--whether consumer or industrial, products or services.

Investigation into what enables a successful online learning community. This project is the focal point for the synthesizing multiple conversations on this topic underway in multiple locations.

This relationship model was developed to sort out what was presented in the Ezra Klein paper titled How Politics Makes Us Stupid.

Value Network Analysis Project

Dialogue Map

Mind Map

RP/CLD Hybrid

How to create causal loops in Kumu

Learning about Kumu Mapping

Causal Loop Diagram