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 good simulation and animation is more valuable to business
than is normally perceived. A part of this is due to how I have used (and
'sold') animation, that is, as a tool for BPR analysis. The simulation is
valuable as a learning tool, a place to test possible future strategies.
The task of convincing management that this is so is difficult. Success
in obtaining management concurrence in the value of a simulation as a
strategic tool seems correlated with their struggling with a current issue
and the teams ability to model the factors and demonstrate several system
outcomes that are reasonable within management experience. So I now ask,
what is the most important problem now? What strategies are you
contemplaing? What are other people advising? And then to the team --
let's model this situation.
>because normal language and concepts just are not
>very good at capturing dynamics, concurrency and chains and loops of
>interactions in their system. In my observation, this is a significant
>source of misunderstanding in the workplace which the animations overcome.
IMHO this is a large stumbling block to business. The concept of system
behavior and its reaction to feedback loops came from control theory, in
electrical or electronic engineering (I think). Its translation into
organizational behavior is difficult. I find that technology based
businesses more easily grasp these concepts than service or manufactureing
groups.
>attempts to use everyday language appear to be limited to anecdotes and
>metaphors, which are incomplete in building a systems language. Does
>anyone see an alternative to novice modellers having to acquire new
>concepts in order to do effective systems modelling?
In my experieince I simply show the concept -- draw the architype of the
current problem and talk about it. Something like 'See when this happened
it influenced this reaction. This made the problem worse. Technically
its called positive feedback. See how the animation showed this same
reaction?' etc., etc..
My problem is that I go too far into the technical concepts, I'm two or
three levels too deep and the business person's eyes are glazed over.
Occassionally business people will ask for references or additional
detail. I take these off line and delve deeper. Often these people
become the best advocates for the model as a learning tool.
>The question for me then becomes how to get people's buy-in to the need to
>acquire new conceptual tools and terms which are not part of their
>ordinary language?
This is a much larger question, for in the working environment in which
people will move from company to company and from career direction to
career direction what is valuable to the individual? For me the value is
increased capabilities. The kind of increased capabilities that are based
on my being able to grasp and use new concepts, for which I need new
language. Is that too self centered?
>Doug Seeley 100433.133@compuserve.com
> "Is there any time and space where networks do not exist?"
"Was Adam, Eve and the snake a network?"
Sorry 'bout that, I couldn't resist. Bill.
--
William J. Hobler, Jr. Bill bhobler@cpcug.org
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Collaborating and learning for mutual growth.
The job is not done until we are all humbled by what
each of us accomplished together.
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