Credit that Never Happened

From SystemsWiki

Notes

Have you ever noticed that nobody every gets credit for fixing problems that never happened. The following is a reimplementation of a very insightful model from a paper by Repenning and Sterman that looks at the implication of working harder or working smarter.

• It also occurred to me that there is a nice point to be made about how you manage costs against performance. E’g. If you fix costs with a rigid budget then you wont improve..... hence the need to borrow to invest. -- Geoff McDonnell [12.06.07]
• Gene, in http://insightmaker.com/insight/1899 what if you had a Performance measure as the ratio Actual Performance/Cost of operation? Geoff McDonnell [12.06.08]

Elements

• Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened Creating and Sustaining Process Improvement by Nelson P. Repenning and John D. Sterman. California Management Review Vol. 43, No. 4. Summer 2001
• Credit Never Happened IM-752 Causal Loop Diagram
• Credit Never Happened IM-1899 Stock & Flow Simulation

Related

• The Improvement Paradox by Nelson Repenning
• The Improvement Paradox IM-1918

An attempt to integrate the ideas in the D-memo into a single model framed around the work harder/smarter model. It needs a bit of tidying up, which Geoff McDonnell intends to do when he sorts out double loop learning (if that ever happens).

• Burnout dynamics IM-333

References

• Adventures in Wonderland
• Overcoming the Improvement Paradox by Keating, Oliva, Repenning, Rockhart, Sterman, European Management Journal , Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 120-134, 1999
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Additional Resources Systems Thinking World Discussions Systems Thinking World Q&A * Gene Bellinger