By Jack Homer, VP of Professional Practice I have developed lots of SD models over the years for both private and public organizations. My models have all been built to answer strategic questions for which there was no single obvious answer, due to the presence of dynamic complexities including accumulations, delays, nonlinearities, and feedback loops. … Continue reading The endogenous perspective: a friendly amendment
Let’s consider policy feasibility
By Jack Homer, VP of Professional Practice I was once consulted by a semiconductor equipment maker who wanted to reduce their service maintenance costs. The client team offered a variety of ideas, some of which were workforce-related and could be implemented fairly rapidly, while other options involved product improvement and would require several years of … Continue reading Let’s consider policy feasibility
Six Reasons to Apply System Dynamics Modeling in Medical Research
By Kenneth G. Cooper (Moderator's Note: After several recent conversations with Ken about different dimensions of SD in medical research, and as a follow-up to his recent post, I asked him to provide a short list of the top reasons why we should pursue more SD work in this area. The list below, shared with … Continue reading Six Reasons to Apply System Dynamics Modeling in Medical Research
The need for SD modeling of human biological systems and diseases
By Kenneth G. Cooper It is within our capability to reduce dramatically the long time and high cost of successful drug development for treating human disease. We can do so by adding to medical research the analysis of the elegantly complex, feedback-intensive systems of the human body—not just as a collection of components, but as … Continue reading The need for SD modeling of human biological systems and diseases
First, look at the data
By Jack Homer, VP of Professional Practice I recently received an e-mail from a college student, someone I’d never heard of before, wondering whether system dynamics was the right approach for studying a particular issue: how the government’s publication of secondary school rankings in his country might influence parents’ attitudes and behaviors. The student wondered … Continue reading First, look at the data
Why we mentor (and should mentor more)
By Jack Homer, VP of Professional Practice In the Odyssey, the ancient Greek epic poem of adventure and personal insight, we meet Mentor, a wise old friend of the family whose name means “mental strength”, and who gives crucial guidance to Telemachus, the son of Odysseus. (In fact, the Mentor who appears to Telemachus is … Continue reading Why we mentor (and should mentor more)
System Dynamics at Sixty: The Path Forward
By John Sterman, Jay W. Forrester Professor of ManagementDirector, MIT System Dynamics Group Last summer we published a special issue of System Dynamics Review celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the field. It included my introductory paper, “System Dynamics at Sixty: The Path Forward” Now five of our colleagues have written commentaries on … Continue reading System Dynamics at Sixty: The Path Forward
How to write a great SD conference paper
By Jack Homer, VP of Professional Practice Let me start by introducing myself, for those who don’t know me. I’ve been involved in system dynamics since the late 1970s, got my PhD at MIT in 1983, and have been a full-time independent SD consultant since 1990. I live in New York’s Hudson Valley, about an … Continue reading How to write a great SD conference paper
Come Together: 2019 ISDC
By Martin Schaffernicht, 2019 President of the System Dynamics Society A conference is “a formal meeting of people with a shared interest, typically one that takes place over several days” and “an event, sometimes lasting a few days, at which there is a group of talks on a particular subject”. The word developed from the … Continue reading Come Together: 2019 ISDC
Message from Incoming Society President
Dear fellow members of the System Dynamics Society, In late 2003, I attended my first system dynamics conference. It was the first Latin American system dynamics conference - upon becoming a member of the System Dynamics Society earlier that year, I had received a message from Roberta Spencer - then the Executive Director of the Society - calling … Continue reading Message from Incoming Society President
