First drawn by Magoroh Maruyama (The Second Cybernetics, 1963), taken up in the system dynamics of Jay W. Forrester (Industrial Dynamics, 1961), and carried to managers by Peter M. Senge (The Fifth Discipline, 1990) and Donella H. Meadows (Thinking in Systems, 2008).
Links the variables in a situation with arrows marked same or opposite direction, then names the reinforcing and balancing loops that drive its behavior over time.
When to reach for it
When an obvious fix keeps failing or backfiring, or when each group sees only its own part of a problem that feeds back on itself.
How it runs
- Name the variables that rise or fall over time.
- Draw an arrow wherever one variable influences another.
- Mark each arrow plus for same direction, minus for opposite.
- Trace the closed loops and label each reinforcing or balancing.
- Look for known patterns, such as limits to growth.
- Pick the point in the loops where a change would matter most.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Industrial Dynamics, 1961
- The Second Cybernetics: Deviation-Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes, American Scientist 51(2), 1963
- The Fifth Discipline, 1990
- Thinking in Systems: A Primer, 2008