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From SystemsWiki

Have you noticed how often your best intentions go awry? You set out to fix a problem and shortly thereafter you find yourself fixing the same problem again, and again. This generally results from some unexpected consequences, things that come into play because of your action, or the results of your action, that you never expected, which is why they're called unexpected consequences.

A Fixes that Fail Systems Archetype consists of a Balancing Loop which is intended to achieve a particular result, yet the result is foiled by an insidious Reinforcing Loop. These two loops interact in such a way that the desired result initially produced by the Balancing Loop is, after some delay, negated by the actions of the Reinforcing Loop. This structure may also be referred to as a Remedies that Fail structure.

Contents 1 Causal Loop Diagram 2 Stock & Flow Diagram 3 Simulation 4 Effective Strategies 5 Areas of Concern 6 Examples 7 References

[edit] Causal Loop Diagram

In Fig. 1 the internal Balancing Loop (B1) operates in the standard Balancing Loop fashion. The action that adds to the migration of the current state toward the desired state also influences, after some delay, some unexpected consequences. These unexpected consequences subsequently impede the migration of the current state in the intended direction.

What makes this structure so annoying is that the time delay associated with the unexpected consequences may be such that it is most difficult to really see what's happening. The fact that it is a reinforcing loop means that its impact may initially be small and only grows to be noticed over time. You fix a problem and think things are fine, then days, weeks, or even months later the same problem is back again. And, with the hectic nature of organizations, who can remember what happened months ago?

[edit] Stock & Flow Diagram

Fig. 2 represents the generic Balancing Loop portion of Fig. 1 making explicit the Current State as a Stock and action as a Flow. The % change factor was added to control the magnitude of the action.

In considering the Balancing Loop there seems to be several ways in which the structure could be extended to account for unexpected consequences:

• The action could influence the development of a stock that would in time hinder the action itself,
• The action could influence the development of a flow which would, after a time, negate the gains made by the initial action, or
• The change in the Current State could influence a flow which influenced a stock that would then influence a flow that would negate the gains from the initial action

All things considered, it's usually probably best to attempt to use the simplest approach first and see what happens. Fig. 3 represents the generic Balancing Loop modified to add unexpected consequence, a flow, which is a function of action and consequence factor, which is a constant.

The action adds to unexpected consequence which is a flow moving the Current State in the opposite direction as action.

[edit] Simulation

Modify the generic Balancing Loop structure to add another flow, unexpected consequence, out of Current State as a function of action and consequence factor depicted in Fig. 3 to create Fig. 4.

Select the following items in the Library window and set up as follows:

• Model Settings
  • Time Step: 1 Week
  • Run Length: 10 Weeks
• unexpected consequences
  • Rate =
    • IF [action] > 25 THEN
      • Return 100 * [consequence factor]
    • ELSE
      • Return 0
    • END IF
    • per 1 weeks
• Data Display
  • Make sure unexpected consequences, Current State, action and desired state are checked.

Now in the Value Sliders window check and set the following Primitives:

• consequence factor: Minimum 0; Maximum 1; value = 0.4
• desired state: Minimum 0; Maximum 200; value 100
• pct change factor: Minimum 0; Maximum 1; value 0.5

Now when you run the model you should experience some rather odd behavior as depicted in Fig. 5.

I would hope you find the behavior at least somewhat unexpected.

Yes, Current State is part of two loops, which was probably obvious, though what is the second loop? Current State subtracts from action which adds to unexpected consequences which subtracts from Current State. Yes, two subtracts from, which is an even number so it's a Reinforcing Loop. As it turns out your action to move Current State to desired state is now fighting against a Reinforcing Loop endeavoring to ensure you'll never get there -- and Reinforcing Loops are tenacious!

What makes this structure so annoying is that the time delay associated with the unexpected consequence may be such that it is most difficult to really see what's happening. The fact that it is a reinforcing loop means that its impact may initially be small and only grows to be noticed over time. You fix a problem and think things are fine, then days, weeks, or even months later the same problem is back again. And, with the hectic nature of organizations, who can remember what happened months ago?

Click Fixes that Fail to run this model in your web browser.

[edit] Effective Strategies

• The most effective strategy for dealing with this structure is advance planning. Since you can never do just one thing, as everything affects everything else, before taking action to change the Current State, think about what else that action, or change in the Current State, is likely to affect. And, what effect the effect will have. Sometimes the unexpected consequence may be several effects away, so don't stop at just one. Essentially what one seeks to do is identify the unexpected, which means it's no longer unexpected then, is it?

• A less effective strategy would be to figure out how to disconnect the unexpected consequence from influencing the action or the Current State. Of course then it wouldn't be a consequence, would it?

[edit] Areas of Concern

• There are times when attempts to deal with a situation in a particular way makes it even more difficult to deal with the situation in an appropriate manner later on which is often an indication of a Shifting the Burden Systems Archetype.

[edit] Examples

• Fixes that Fail Examples

[edit] References

• Causal Loop and Stock & Flow Diagrams created with Vensim
• Simulation created with Simgua

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