Crafting Engineering Strategy

Chapter 14. Systems Modeling

While I was probably late to learn the concept of strategy testing, I might have learned about systems modeling too early, stumbling on Donella Meadows’s Thinking in Systems: A Primer (Chelsea Green, 2008) before I had a clear set of problems to apply its techniques against. Fortunately, I remembered those lessons as I began my software career, and over time I’ve discovered a number of ways to use systems modeling. While systems modeling isn’t perfect, it remains the most effective, flexible tool I’ve found to debug complex problems.

This chapter starts with a two-minute primer on the basics of systems modeling, then covers how to implement these approaches with examples from a number of systems models created to refine the strategies discussed throughout this book. It ends with resources for those looking for a deeper exploration. I’ll cover:

• When systems modeling is (or isn’t) the right technique

• Tooling

• How to build a systems model

• How to document and communicate what you learn from a systems model

• What systems modeling can and can’t do

After working through this chapter’s overview of systems modeling, you can see the approaches implemented in a number of systems models created to refine the strategies throughout this book. The theory of systems modeling is certainly interesting, but hopefully seeing real models in support of concrete engineering strategies will be even more useful.

A Two-Minute Primer

If you want an exceptional introduction ...