WIREDGOV

It’s easy to be wise after the event.

If the APM’s target of all projects succeeding is to be met, we must all be a lot wiser before the event.

Improving the identification of consequences i.e. the knock-on effects of making a choice, is essential to improving decision-making at all levels, from change control up to strategic implementation.

Tragically, the NHS manager who filled a gap in the Health Visitor workforce by redeploying midwives failed to recognise that the shortage of midwives created would cost the lives of mothers and babies.

Systems Dynamics and the use of Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) are a graphical tool for exploring both the scope and the dynamics of a problem and the solution so helping reveal unexpected consequences of projects, solutions and decisions.

We have found them to be easy to use, quick and cheap to employ, so dramatically reducing the need to make the simplifying assumptions responsible for so many project failures.

Stock and Flow models (SFMs) take CLDs into the world of simulation and can demonstrate the quantitative effects. Using CLDs is powerful in developing a consensus amongst diverse stakeholders due to effectiveness in facilitating collaborative working across different stakeholders, removing many of the barriers to a shared understanding of the situation to be addressed by the project/programme.

We briefly describe CLDs and SFMs then illustrate their practical application by working through real yet apparently simple case study.

In this webinar on Monday 10 March, we covered how CLDs and SFMs can be used generically in change impact assessment and risk identification for a project, illustrating it in a commercial sales context, as well as with the world-wide climate change issue.

Click here for the full press release