Principles
A set of elements or parts that is coherently organized and interconnected in a pattern or structure that produces a characteristic set of behaviors, often classified as its function or purpose. More than the sum of its parts.
What is a system?
Equilibrating or goal-setting structures in systems that are both sources of stability and resistance to change.
What are balancing feedback loops?
When various actors try to pull a system state toward various goals.
What is policy resistance?
Arises when a solution to a systemic problem reduces or disguises the symptoms but does nothing to solve the underlying problem.
What is shifting the burden to the intervenor?
Constants and parameters, subsidies, taxes, and standards.
What are numbers?
The source of system behavior.
What is structure?
Self-enhancing, leading to exponential growth or to runaway collapses over time.
What are reinforcing feedback loops?
When there is a commonly shared resource, every user benefits directly from its use but shares the costs of its abuse with everyone elase.
What is the tragedy of the commons?
Perverse behavior that gives the appearance of obeying or achieving goals.
What is rule beating?
The sizes of stabilizing stocks relative to their flows.
What are buffers?
The memory of the changing history of flows within a system.
What is a stock?
Information delivered by a feedback loop (even a nonphysical feedback) can only affect this type of behavior.
What is future? Because it cannot delivery a signal fast enough to correct behavior that drove the current feedback loop.
Allowing performance standards to be influenced by past performance.
What is drift to low performance?
When indicators are defined inaccurately and the system obediently works to produce a results not intended or wanted.
What is seeking the wrong goal?
Physical systems and their nodes of intersection.
What are stock-and-flow structures?
Many of this element in systems operate through the flow of information.
What are interconnections?
What is a stock-maintaining feedback loop. Otherwise the feedback process will fall short of or exceed the target for the stock.
When the state of one stock is determined by trying to surpass the state of another stock, creating a reinforcing feedback loop.
What is escalation?
The lengths of time relative to the rates of system changes.
What are delays?
What is the least obvious part of the system, its function or purpose?
Systems with similar feedback structures produce this.
What is similar dynamic behaviors?
If the winners of a competition are systematically rewarded with the means to win again.
What is success to the successful?
The power to add, change, or evolve system strcuture.