Doug Seeley wrote:
> However, there have been various times when senior management and line
> personnel have been involved and gotten very excited by the animations
> which portray the way their systems actually work... they usually do
> not
> pursue this very far because of the time pressures of their work.
I think that it cannot be the work of top-management to
develop models; they will not like to spend the time, and
they may not like to learn how to develop such a computer
based model. I think that success is more likely if you
organize senior management in a steering group, defining the
issues and objectives of the model, defining broad guidelines
of the scenario to develop and so on. The model building
should take place in task forces and action teams, supported
by people who are familar with building computer based models
and system theory. However, those two groups would have to
interact from time to time with the steering team, demonstating
intermediate results but also ask for support if problems
occure.
> However, the step from watching the animation and being able to build
> a model is a big one, for which the main barriers appear to be the
> lack of practice in articulation of any systems understanding, lack of
> experience in working with the dynamics and variability of system
> components, and an effective conceptual framework with which to
> capture their systems understanding.
I tried to build my first models with Powersim, what has a
graphical interface very similar to Ithink!; however, you need
some training with
a) system theory and how to build a model of the system in the
language of system theory (as described for example in Peter
Senges 'Fieldbook'), and
b) how to translate this model into the software you use. This
is also a hard step that should not be underestimated, and
both steps need a special training.
Does anybody know a special book that supports step b), by
using Powersim or Ithink!?
-- Wolfgang Schmid e-mail: ws2@student.open.ac.uk Compuserve: 100101.3210@Compuserve.com ($!!)company address: OMV AG Raffinerie Schwechat Mannswoertherstrasse 28 A-2320 Schwechat Austria/Europe