Systems thinking: critical thinking skills for the 1990s and beyond

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126 System Dynamics Review Volume 9 Number 2 Summer 1993Fig. 10.Populationfeedback loopFig. 11.PopulationstructuraldiagramAnother simple example will further illustrate the rigor associatedwith the structural thinking track. Consider the diagram in Figure 12,which provides an intuitive but structurally incorrect representation of asimple conveyor line process. Empty bottles flow along a conveyor, entera filling station, and are filled with liquid that drains out of a vat. Filledbottles then exit the station and accumulate in a filled bottle inventory.Simple, intuitive and, as I said, not structurally correct.To see why, examine the alternative representation of the processin Figure 13. In this alternative representation, notice that the flow ofliquid and the flow of bottles are kept distinct. This is not the case in thefirst, more intuitive representation. If one took a snapshot of the actualprocess, the photograph would more closely resemble Figure 12. After all,liquid really does pour into bottles. However, liquid and bottle do notbecome one. We still have liquid (measured in liters) and bottles(measured in number of bottles). So, from a units-of-measure standpoint,we still have two quantities: number of bottles and number of liters. If onemixed the two units of measure, one would end up with a very strangequantity in the box labeled "Bottles being Filled," namely, bottle-liters .When engaging in structural thinking, it is essential to maintainunits-of-measure integrity within each stock-and-flow subsystem.Imprecise notions like "I put a lot of effort into the project" and "I'll giveyou all my love" simply " don't compute" when doing structural thinking.Quantities that flow into a stock must have the same units of measure asthat stock. Maintaining unit integrity ensures the conservation of physicalquantities. This, in turn, keeps one from getting something for nothing. Italso infuses a very strong discipline and precision into the thinkingprocess.
Richmond: Systems Thinking 127Fig. 12.Intuitive,structurallyincorrectrepresentationFig. 13.Structurallycorrect: usingdistinct units ofmeasureSkill 5: operational thinkingOperational thinking goes hand in hand with structural thinking. Thinkingoperationally means thinking in terms of how things really work—nothow they theoretically work, or how one might fashion a bit of algebracapable of generating realistic-looking output. One of my favoriteexamples of the distinction between operational and nonoperationalthinking is provided by the "universal soil loss equation." This equationexpresses a "fundamental law" in soil physics. Used to predict the volumeof erosion that will occur on a given parcel of land, it can be represented asErosion = RKLSCPwhereR = rainfallK = soil erodabilityL = slope lengthS = slope gradientC = vegetative coverageP = erosion control practices
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