vesterberg.se

I found an interesting course at the MIT web called Applications of System Dynamics spring 2004.

This is the course description:

… a project-based course that explores how organizations can use system dynamics to achieve important goals. In small groups, students learn modeling and consulting skills by working on a term-long project with real-life managers. A diverse set of businesses and organizations sponsor class projects, from start-ups to the Fortune 500. The course focuses on gaining practical insight from the system dynamics process, and appeals to people interested in system dynamics, consulting, or managerial policy-making.

The course shows a process for using system dynamics to solve problems. Prof Jim Hines calls it the standard method, because it is the approach used by most SD (system dynamics) practitioners. The course shows how you can plan you work and how to organize your meetings with your client week by week. He uses a fictitious case all the way up to the final Vensim model and even supplies suggestions for power-point presentations to the client.

His approach briefly looks like this:
1) Problem definition: list of variables, reference modes, problem statement
2) Momentum policies
3) Dynamic hypotheses
4) Model first loop
5) Analyze first loop
6) Model second loop
7) Analyze second loop
Etc.

The interesting thing about this resource is the generous online lecture notes. I found the guidelines (pdf) very useful because of the practical advice therein and I will definitively use the guidelines as a starting template when doing consultant work in the future The entire course material can be downloaded here.

There is another SD course at MIT OpencourseWare called System Dynamics for Business Policy. It uses Sterman’s book Business Dynamics as textbook and does not have extra lecture notes. You can download the assignments of the course and they might be of some interest.