From Jay W. Forrester's market growth model (Market Growth as Influenced by Capital Investment, 1968), named as an archetype by Peter M. Senge (The Fifth Discipline, 1990), and modeled by John D. Sterman (Business Dynamics, 2000).
Describes how growth strains capacity, service slips, demand softens, and the firm reads the softening as a market ceiling and underinvests, locking in the limit.
When to reach for it
When growth stalls just as service quality falls, and the stall is being read as market saturation.
How it runs
- Map growth, capacity strain, service quality, and demand together.
- Confirm capacity is the binding constraint.
- Test whether demand fell from market limits or from worse service.
- If service caused it, invest in capacity despite soft demand.
- Track whether demand recovers as quality returns.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Market Growth as Influenced by Capital Investment, Industrial Management Review, 1968
- The Fifth Discipline, 1990
- Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World, 2000