Abstract for: Main-stream System Dynamics

Although system dynamics has solved many problems in many fields, it is still seen by those who know of it as a specialist tool for tackling special classes of issue. Reliable low-cost procedures and better tools might help increase adoption, but for SD to become main-stream also requires starting from the issues of concern to users, and from the mind-set they currently deploy to tackle them. Many of those issues are not about "solving problems" but about continual sound management of situations (so problems do not arise in the first place!), and the ubiquitous mind-set is the spreadsheet view of how things work. SD-service providers must therefore show that the method can improve the design and continual operation of complex situations, and not be limited to occasional one-off, idiosyncratic challenges. They must also show that the method can do much better a wide range of tasks for which spreadsheets are not fit-for-purpose. SD-modeling is not, then, 'more work and cost' for users, but actually less work and cost than would be incurred in any case, to produce outputs that are considerably more useful. This talk will offer illustrations of both these principles in real-world cases.