I was having coffee with a colleague recently and he challenged me to be much more concise and concrete about what makes Decisio's approach to modeling, simulation, and analysis novel and valuable. In response I've boiled Decisio's proposition down to four dimensions. In this post I am going to try to summarize these as concisely as possible. In future posts I'll elaborate each one and present some concrete examples.
The first dimension is purpose. Modeling and simulation is used for a wide array of purposes. Decisio uses modeling, simulation, and visualization to support decision making and problem solving.
The second dimension is application. Models don't make decisions, people do. People do it by developing a belief about how the relevant part of the world works and then acting on this belief. I call this process sense-making. It can be very hard for people to accomplish it successfully when faced with difficult circumstances. Decisio uses modeling and simulation to accelerate and improve people's ability to make sense when faced with unique, unfamiliar, complex, and ambiguous circumstances.
The third dimension is modeling technology and approach. Dynamic systems models are uniquely capable of describing the time based interactions of relevant actors and processes, of which there may be many. The ability to describe all of the relevant structure and resulting behavior over time makes systems models the tool of choice to support the sensemaking process. Agent based modeling and system dynamics modeling techniques form the core technical approaches.
The fourth dimension is managing and accumulating knowledge. Explicit systems models are artifacts that become the means to share understanding between individuals and groups, support collaborative development and expansion of knowledge, and support the reuse of insight.
Well, I think that is about as direct as I can make it! Let me know what you think!
Well, I think that is about as direct as I can make it! Let me know what you think!
