System Dynamics

• The Essay topic: System Dynamics
• Class:4IT496 Simulation of Systems (WS 2015/2016)
• Author: Dinara Mansurova

“An ocean traveler has even more vividly the impression that the ocean is made of waves than that it is made of water.”
― Arthur Stanley Eddington

Gifford Lecture at the University of Edinburgh (Mar 1927). In The Nature of the Physical World (1929, reprint 2005), 242.

Jay Wright Forrester
Jay Wright Forrester
Jay W. Forrester - a father of System Dynamics and inventor of random-access memory. Works as the Professor Emeritus of Management in System Dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has been recognized with numerous awards: Notable awards IEEE Medal of Honor (1972), Howard N. Potts Medal, National Medal of Technology and Innovation (1989), Computer History Museum Fellow (1995).

System dynamics is a perspective and set of conceptual tools that enable us to understand the structure and dynamics of complex systems. System dynamics is also a rigorous modeling method that enables us to build formal computer simulations of complex systems and use them to design more effective policies and organizations. Together, these tools allow us to create management flight simulators-microworlds where space and time can be compressed and slowed so we can experience the long-term side effects of decisions, speed learning, develop our understanding of complex systems, and design structures and strategies for greater success.

History

System dynamics as an independent discipline was invented in 1950s in MIT by Jay W. Forrester.

The Nature of System Dynamics

Before introducing the world of system dynamics, we should understand what we mean by the words "system" and "dynamics". System is a very common word, which is used in a lot of different environments. It is an interconnected series of pieces that work together to achieve some objective. And term dynamics is reffered to an active and changing component of the system. As a whole, system dynamics study how each part of system interact with other pieces and how they change in a certain period of time, it tries to model and understand the dynamic behavior of complex systems.

The question is why do we need system dynamics and system thinking? And the answer is not simply that world is changing faster and faster and things are accelerating. Everybody knows that. It’s despite all the tools and methods that we’ve got, all the analytic power and our cleverness, things are getting harder and harder. And more and more of the policies that we implement are failing to solve the pressing challenges that we face.

MIT Professor John Sterman provides a very memorizable example of sytem dynamics and system thinking in his Open MIT course. By this example he is trying to describe the concept of the system dynamics that looks at a system as a whole in three picrutes.

System thinking example

Picture 1	Picture 2	Picture 3
On the first picture office worker is depicted. This poor guy is complitely squeezed by pressures on both sides. He can not breath. Claustrophobic. And what you are asked to do as a manager is to be decisive. You have to make decisions.	Consequently, what manager did? He made a decision. Things are much better for him right now. He can breath more easily, see out to the side. Refief.	But as you may suspect, there could be some unanticipated side effects.

Open-loop thinking

With analytical thinking people tend to see the world in terms of linear cause and effect. There is always a beginning (cause/reason), middle and the end (consequence).

Feedback loops

System thinking looks through the interplay between elements that is a feedback loops, through which elements are interconnected, affecting joint outcome.

Complex systems

Excercises and Questions for revision

1. Take a look at the system thinking example once again. Why does this phenomenon happen and why don't people learn? (Hint: Think of the problem in short/long-term perspective.)

References

--Dinara (talk) 17:36, 21 January 2016 (CET)