Chapter 2. Introduction to Feedback Systems Thinking

• Ways of Interpreting Situations in Business and Society

• A Start on Causal Loop Diagrams

• Structure and Behaviour Through Time – Feedback Loops and the Dynamics of a Slow-to-respond Shower

• From Events to Dynamics and Feedback – Drug-related Crime

• Purpose of Causal Loop Diagrams – A Summary

• Feedback Structure and Dynamics of a Technology-based Growth Business

• Causal Loop Diagrams – Basic Tips

In this chapter, the basic concepts of feedback systems thinking are introduced. The approach helps you to develop an overview of organisations and to see the big picture. It enables you to step back from operating detail, and to visualise how the parts of a business, industry or society fit together and interact. Pictures are important in this kind of work. You will learn how to draw causal loop diagrams (word and arrow charts that show interdependencies), and how to pick-out the important feedback loops of circular cause and effect. You will also begin to appreciate that the structure of a given system, its particular combination of feedback loops, determines performance through time. From there it's just a short step to the most fundamental tenet of the field that 'structure gives rise to dynamical behaviour'.