Crafting System Dynamics Models and Making Them Accessible: Lessons From Forty Years of Practice

摘要

This paper shares reflections drawn from 40 years of experience crafting system dynamics models and commenting on policy-relevant modeling. It goal is to offer ten lessons about building and using models gained from that experience. Four modeling projects and a collaborative book describing the early years of global modeling provide context for the lessons presented. Here are three examples: 1. Policy-relevant research that links system dynamics models with structures drawn from other modeling paradigms can be an effective communication device and may offer opportunities to broaden the reach of system dynamics modeling. 2. Defining a problem based on a reference mode of problematic behavior may not be absolutely essential to developing a good model, but it is extraordinarily helpful. Reproducing a historical reference mode, ideally over an extended period of time, should not be the only confidence-building test for a model but it is an important one. 3. System dynamics modeling should not primarily be viewed as a simulation technique that is distinguished by its increasingly elegant graphical user interfaces and interactive model-manipulation tools. The most significant value-added it provides is a powerful body of theory about the relationship between generic system structures and system behaviors.