CSS 3.2
- 1. The Center for Systemic Solutions James Van Laak March 19, 2016 Version 3.2
- 3. Contents: 1. Vision and Mission 2. Executive Summary 3. Introduction 4. Society as a System 5. The Tools 6. The Center 7. Conclusion 8. Appendix A: Example Problem – Gun Violence 9. Appendix B: Implementation Plan 10. Appendix C: Tools and Products 11. Appendix D: Systems Dynamic Modeling 12. Appendix E: Systems Engineering 13. Appendix F: Supporters
- 4. The Center for Systemic Solutions Vision A world where critical societal decisions are made transparently; where decisions flow from requirements that capture the ethos, needs and ambitions of the citizens; where policy and decision making are based on knowledge and evidence rather than belief. Mission To support societal decision making and governance utilizing the best information, expertise, and tools available from individuals, organizations, and governmental entities.
- 5. Executive Summary Human society has historically evolved through a process of trial and error, where innovations survived or disappeared based on how well their communities fared. While this can be effective, it is slow and costly, sometimes leading to the failures of entire societies. Further, the brutality of the process can intimidate to the point where many people disdain progress altogether, making it extremely difficult to adapt to changed environments or address other serious problems. While societal progress has been slow and painful, technological progress has thrived aided by a broad appreciation of its benefits and an approach that allows innovation at an acceptable cost. Failures still occur but are on a scale that does not discourage or intimidate. The result has been an era of unprecedented technological growth. We can now see that the approach that has produced our technological progress would be equally valuable when applied to society. Pioneering efforts have already found success, with major advances expected when the approach is applied more broadly to optimize society not as a collection of piece parts but as a fully functioning whole. The Center for Systemic Solutions is designed to do just this. It will apply this powerful and proven approach to understand our complex society, propose and test solutions, evaluate potential outcomes, and support wise implementation decisions that respect the needs of its human members. Further, it will do so not by growing government, but by drawing upon the deep understanding and resources of the thousands of special interest organizations around the world that have arisen to advance their areas of expertise. By harvesting the enormous intellectual resource found in these organizations we can find and implement effective answers to many contemporary societal issues. And because the vast majority of the resources are already extant, funded by their respective communities, and consisting of private citizens operating openly and voluntarily, the cost of doing so will be negligible. This offers to be the most efficient and effective way to improve the performance of our society. This paper solicits support for the Center both through participation in its processes and through sponsorship of its work.
- 6. Introduction Modern human society is vast in scope, dynamic in form, and complex in function. It strains our ability to comprehend its many structures, processes, and relationships let alone predict its future course, the consequences of our actions, or exactly how changes in one area will affect others. Yet change is as certain in our future as it is obvious in our past, constantly presenting our leaders with critical decisions affecting the peace and prosperity of our world. And because society is so complex, those leaders struggle to make wise decisions that advance civilization while minimizing adverse consequences. Today we see a new opportunity to maneuver through these changes without the costly trial and error that has characterized past efforts. It comes from a surprising source – the technical processes that have given us our many technological wonders. The spectacular success of complex technologies has led to the growing realization that human society often behaves very much the same as our technological wonders – as what the technical community calls a system. Seeing society in this way offers critical insights into how it functions and why. It also opens the door to applying the tools and techniques for managing complex systems to advancing our society. This is not the first time people have attempted to apply technical tools to human problems, but previous efforts had limited success either because they failed to embrace the full complexity of the societal system or because they failed to respect the unique needs of humans. The core idea underlying the Center is the commitment to learn from prior experience in all domains and to use what works while avoiding what has not. It will humbly apply the lessons learned from previous attempts including full consideration of the frailty and individuality of the human element. Society as a System Human society consists of a large and broad array of elements each of which contributes essential functions to the whole. This means that it functions as a system, defined here as a collection of functionally differentiated elements working together. It is easy to recognize a spacecraft as a system, whose power, propulsion, and communications elements are required to achieve its mission, yet exactly the same is true for societies. Its laws protect citizens and enable commerce, and infrastructures for water, sanitation, power, transportation, communication, etc. provide a conducive environment for living and working. Its military forces provide defense, businesses supply the necessities and luxuries of life, leadership plans and directs, etc. Each of these societal elements has evolved to improve its contribution to the overall system, and each is dependent on the others for its successful function.
- 7. Because of its size and diversity, society is the most sophisticated system created by humankind despite having so far evolved almost entirely by trial and error. But trial and error is extremely costly, often requiring alternatives be fully implemented to determine their suitability, including many that ultimately prove to be unsuccessful. In technical systems the cost of such trials comes in the form of money and time, but in human systems like society the cost often includes enormous suffering and many lost lives. The high cost of their failures drove technical managers to find ways to understand and guide the development of new systems before committing to implementation. Societal leaders have long wished for similar tools and will benefit greatly as they are made available. The challenge of managing systems lies in the complexity that makes it difficult to directly connect causes to effects. But this same complexity is the key to their value because it is an inherent consequence of the design optimization that enables their power. Such complexity is enabled through a two-step process. Step one is to break down the functions the system must perform so that each element can be specialized for optimum performance. Step two is to integrate these highly optimized elements to work together for maximum group performance. Humans have adopted part one of the system process already. Specialization comes easily as most people find great satisfaction in becoming expert in what they do. It stimulates and rewards their competitive urge, motivates them to be more efficient, productive, and innovative than their peers, providing clear and immediate benefits. But the second step, integrating our specialized capabilities into a functional whole, is more difficult because it is at odds with our nature. Our native instincts – artifacts of our animal nature – teach us to protect our own, hoard our resources, and to be wary of those who are different from ourselves. These instincts serve us well in primitive settings such as small tribal groups but are out of place in modern society. The societal system requires people work together with others who are different from themselves in contradiction of those instincts. This is fundamental - the success of the system requires its elements work together well – so people must behave in ways that earn, grow and sustain mutual trust. Our challenge is thus to create a society that simultaneously rewards specialization and fosters trust and cooperation. Creating and sustaining a successful societal system requires many decisions to define its structures, allocate functions, establish roles and responsibilities, and create the environment within which its members function. Making the right decisions is a challenge for a manager overseeing an office of a few hundred; doing so for a society consisting of many millions is overwhelming. Yet this is precisely the kind of complex management challenge the systems approach was created to satisfy. Engineering Society Engineering applies scientific and mathematical techniques to the creation of devices useful to people, what we call technology. Simple technologies arose from the narrow expertise of individuals who produced early machines such as mills, forges, and engines.
- 8. As our pursuit of technology led to more complex machines and systems, engineering advanced to keep pace, today offering capabilities far beyond those available just a few decades ago. Today’s systems engineers bring together the diverse skills of many specialists using sophisticated tools to guide large system development and operation. Our effort to view society as a system reflects this progress in engineering coupled with efforts to approach societal issues in a more structured way. Marrying these initiatives allows us to better understand what we want from our society, the functions needed from its various elements, and to pursue their optimization, evaluate their performance, and guide their integration to make the whole work. Although the parallels between society and technical systems are obvious, society cannot be optimized as easily as a technical system. Where technical systems are functionally ordered with discrete, measurable functions, society is more blended, abstract, and guided with subjective information. Technical systems consist of inanimate elements that function mechanically, without feelings or ulterior motives, while society is rife with human emotions, foibles, and demands for individuality. Such human idiosyncrasies, while often troublesome, are inescapable. The key to success can be found in the unique gift that has brought our species to the top of the food chain on our planet - the intelligence that provides us with the ability – when we choose to use it – to rationally consider the consequences of our choices and select those that offer the best outcome. We can be successful if and only if we learn to apply our intelligence more consistently to our societal problems. The Tools Technological progress has been enabled by three principle tools: evidence based decision making, which utilizes experimentation, observation, and empirical knowledge to make decisions; the systems approach, which considers the totality of the system we seek to manage and brings the power of all disciplines to its service; and systems engineering, the robust approach to the design and operation of complex systems. Evidence BasedDecision Making History has shown that the best decisions are made utilizing empirical knowledge based on observation, experiment or precedent, rather than on a theory or ideology. When based on a sufficient number of observations, accurately made, this unfailingly gives the best results. For this reason technical problems are always first approached using the best empirical knowledge available. Absent such knowledge, engineers use scientific theory – analogous to ideology – but only as a hypothesis. Its low confidence level is recognized and therefore requires rigorous testing. Costly experience has proven that personal opinion, intuition, and raw theory are unreliable bases for technical decisions.
- 9. In the world of social policy the situation has been largely the opposite. Many policy makers routinely make critical decisions on the basis of intuition or ideology without considering empirical information. While this might have been necessary when people had little access to useful data, today we have a rich history on which to base many decisions. Unfortunately, the old behavior is so deeply ingrained that many people continue to rely on opinion and intuition even in the face of contrary evidence. Intuition and judgment remain important sources of insight, but they should be applied to decisions affecting society exactly as they are in the technical realm: as the basis for a hypothesis that must be tested and weighed against objective information. They should never directly form the basis for policy. The Systems Approach The central concept of the systems approach is that performance is maximized when every part of the system does exactly what is required of it to achieve the system’s objectives. This optimizes the system and achieves maximum efficiency. Note that the system’s elements are optimized for the benefit of the system as a whole, not the individual parts. This often results in designs where individual elements perform well below their individual optimums in order to support the overall system. In the case of society, wise individuals recognize that their long term interests require putting the good of society above their short term goals. They are willing to make sacrifices for the good of the whole when they understand and have confidence in the basis for those decisions. The Center would use discipline experts and the special interest organizations they foster to provide the expertise used to solve the problems facing society as a whole. Experience has shown that people who are involved in the process, who understand the issues and see the sacrifices being made by others, are willing to accept compromise Rational people can and do make wise long term decisions when the process is balanced, fair, and transparent. Systems Engineering As previously noted, systems engineering uses sophisticated tools to design, build, test, and operate systems for maximum performance. The systems engineer integrates the functional areas into a system that performs as desired. This is done by capturing the requirements, flowing them to each subsystem and component, identifying and managing risks, verifying performance, and ensuring that the system functions as predicted. An overview of the process is given in Appendix B. Many of these systems engineering tools and techniques are directly applicable to society. For example, systems dynamic modeling is equally useful for human and technical systems, providing a high level simulation of how the system and its elements work together. An illustration is shown in Appendix C. Other tools and products are
- 10. listed in Appendix D and include computer programs to capture and allocate requirements, track and mitigate risks, specify handovers between elements, track the system configuration to control the effect of changes in one element on others, and allocate limited resources. All of these tools can be applied to social and business problems to good effect. A Systems Approach in Business Elements of the systems approach have been successfully applied to non-technical applications for decades with much of the work in the business sector. For example, Apple owes much of its success to a penetrating systems approach to product development, considering not only the core product, but the supplier, manufacturer, and distribution network during the development process. More recently, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has done much the same in the commercial space transportation business, choosing to bring its most critical sources in house to ensure perfect integration in both the technical and business domains. Because the business world is ruthlessly pragmatic, survival requires actively seeking out techniques that offer greater profitability, productivity, and other fundamentals required for survival in a competitive environment. Despite the success of the systems approach in technical systems and business, it has rarely been applied to broader societal issues. This may be true because those issues are often seen as more subjective and less bounded by logic; more policy than science, but the success of the systems approach in business would seem to argue against this. Those who have applied the approach to societal issues see its power and are eager to use it more broadly. Managing the Systems Approach Successfully applying systems engineering to a complex and dynamic system such as human society requires a sophisticated management process. This rigorous system-level planning and control function is known as the systems engineering and integration function, or SE&I for short. The SE&I group that performs this function acts as the brain that plans, directs, and tracks the work. Working with Humans An easily foreseen objection to applying this approach to human society is that human beings are not machinery and do not respond well to being treated as such. This is a valid concern that must be addressed. Fortunately, we see that the required technical steps, when translated into human terms, need not be threatening. We noted that the first step, specialization, happens naturally with most people voluntarily specializing on the basis of personal aptitude and interest. The resulting
- 11. specialties often organize special interest organizations to advance their interests and goals. Such special interest groups are usually deep but narrow, focusing on their own interests with limited understanding of how those interests interact with others. It comes as no surprise that their resulting policy positions are often very parochial. The second step, integration of the specialized functions to form the system, requires people trust one another, understand their interdependency, and work together without conflict. This can be difficult for many reasons including memories of past conflicts and the human instinct of xenophobia. But integration is both possible and satisfying if we substitute the word cooperation for integration. Few can argue against the observation that society works best when its members cooperate well with one another. The greatest difficulty in achieving this cooperation is learning to trust each other. The root causes of this difficulty are uncertainty about how fair the agreement is and about how well the others are living up to their obligations. These issues are ameliorated through the system approach because by its nature the system requires that its functions be mapped out in a transparent approach to achieve informed acceptance by all parties. Each party fully understands what they are being asked to do and why, and they receive similar information regarding the roles of the other parties. Further, the normal operation of the system requires sharing information on the performance of every element, making it clear who is living up to their obligations. A well designed and implemented system functions on the basis of understanding and transparency which supports the creation and sustainment of trust. The Future The future of human society will largely be determined by our progress on two fronts: technological and societal evolution. Technology empowers humans to exert greater power over our environment and each other. It can do either great good or fearsome evil. Either way, and with consummate justice, the decisions are ours to make: our future is in our hands. Fortunately, technology continues to do great things addressing the material challenges of our world. Its new and cleaner sources of power, more efficient means of transportation, improved health services, and countless other products are improving the quality of life for those lucky enough to receive their benefits. But technology also has a darker side, as it creates new and more powerful weapons, alters our environment, and generates unintended side effects. Perhaps its most urgent effect is to amplify the consequences of decisions made in the societal domain. When we make decisions to improve fairness and trust through programs to fight global poverty and disease we enjoy the benefits of greater cooperation, but when we allow greed and xenophobia to increase disparities between peoples, technology empowers the disenfranchised with ever more powerful weapons while our global economy and rapid transportation offer many vulnerabilities to their use.
- 12. Technology is relentlessly changing our world and the terms of the global social contract. The time has passed when those in the third world were unaware how they were being left behind by their wealthier neighbors. Today’s ubiquitous communications make this inequality inescapable with potentially serious consequences for the long term stability of human society. What was once a philosophical question about fairness in the third world will soon become an existential challenge to humanity. The Center is one critical step on the road to that progress. It allows us to bring the sum of humanity’s intellectual energy to bear on these critical problems. Hopefully it will serve as a model for a later group that can harness the same resource on the global scale. The Center Implementing the Systems Approach to Society This paper proposes to create an independent non-profit Center for Systemic Solutions to manage the implementation of the systems approach to society. It would serve as the SE&I function to create system level solutions, concentrating the expertise, tools, and modeling capabilities of the systems approach in an organization unperturbed by special interests. Managing a complex system such as society requires the vision to see the system as a functional whole and the management function to coordinate and direct the work. The systems approach provides the perspective to clearly understand that functional whole and the SE&I function provides the needed control as the brain for the systems engineering function. The Center must guarantee high quality products and insure against corruption. It must be designed to avoid conflicts of interest, influence peddling and other attempts to bias outcomes, but also to guard against the tendency toward the creation of larger and more costly bureaucracies. If its functions were embedded in that bureaucracy its outputs could be expected to support bureaucratic self-interest. Its independence from the government, aided by the transparency inherent in the technical process, enables products that serve the society as a whole and not a parochial self-interest. In addition to the SE&I function, the systems approach requires access to deep expertise in the critical system functions. One way to achieve this would be to create a separate group of experts within the Center , a very costly undertaking that would have no particular credibility with the interests while leaving the Center vulnerable to suspicion. Rather than trying to hold the special interests at bay, the Center is designed to involve these special interests in transparent, technically managed, neutrally moderated forums and processes. In this way the Center will gain the benefits of their deep expertise, gain their buy in to solutions, protect its independence, and keep costs to a minimum. The Center will be staffed by a small cadre of experts in systems engineering, systems management, and core societal disciplines such as government and sociology to oversee,
- 13. coordinate and lead the work of the participating expert organizations. Many of the detailed analyses will be done within these expert organizations, but all will be widely reviewed and validated before being used in developing recommendations. The result is an impressive capability to develop high quality recommendations to solve societal issues. While its products are only recommendations, the consensus produced through this process should greatly enhance their acceptability in the political sphere. Implementing Policy The Center will analyze issues and develop solutions, not impose its will on the society. The decision to implement those solutions must remain with industry leaders and our democratic structures and processes. Its products are understanding and options, not a centrally managed society. Political Alignment The Center is strictly non-partisan and apolitical. Implementation and Funding Appendix A is a draft implementation plan for the Center, while B, C, and D describe key elements of its approach and products. Appendix E contains a growing list of outstanding supporters. Note that low cost and efficiency have been prime goals of the concept. The use of the existing network of special interest organizations as the technical resource for the work provides great leverage and cost effectiveness. Full funding of the Center is expected to be a small fraction of the cost of a major think tank, reflecting a “design to cost/design to budget” approach. Conclusion This paper describes the Center for Systemic Solutions created to integrate and coordinate the efforts of expert individuals, organizations, and governments working to improve our society and government. It seeks your support in the pursuit of that goal. Individuals or companies interested in supporting the Center are requested to contact Mr. Jim Van Laak at james.vanlaak@gmail.com or at 757-871-5964.
- 14. Appendix A: Example: The problem of gun violence Talk about reducing gun violence usually focuses on gun control. Such efforts have been largely ineffective due to the power of the gun lobby, but even without that opposition, the power of the approach is limited. This is because the problem of gun violence is a systemic response arising from many causes and contributors. Any attempt to solve it by only attacking a single cause is guaranteed to disappoint. A better approach would consider the problem as a whole and implement a carefully crafted set of actions across its multiple contributors. Complex Systems cause Complex Problems Human society is what engineers call a system, a collection of functionally differentiated elements working together. Systems can be either simple, with a few broadly capable elements working according to simple rules, or complex, with many optimized elements working through elaborate, often adaptive, rules. Without doubt, contemporary human society is one of the most complex systems ever constructed, and finding solutions to its problems demands the use of sophisticated tools and techniques. Complex systems work by bringing together specialized capabilities that have been optimized for the benefit of the whole. They can be very powerful, but they can also breed complex problems, where interactions between the elements can cause harmful effects. In both cases, complexity is the key to enhancing or diminishing the system’s performance. Unfortunately, such complexity defies efforts to find a single, simple solution because in the majority of cases, no such simple solution exists. Even efforts to find the greatest contributor to the problem (the “tall pole”) or the one most easily impacted (the “weak link”) are rarely effective because they affect such a small part of the problem or they cause powerful unintended consequences. Moreover, applying simple solutions to complex problems brings three serious disadvantages. First, any approach that concentrates on one or two components of a complex system is unlikely to be effective. The power of each is small compared to the whole, and so will be the impact of a change. For example, the problem of gun violence cannot be solved by banning the sale of assault weapons because they make up only a small fraction of the gun population. Even if such a ban was implemented, other guns would be substituted with little impact on the problem. Second, solving a complex problem by attacking a single element requires severe actions that can produce strong consequences, including hardship for those affected. This can do great damage in a democracy when those with legitimate needs are injured unnecessarily. Reducing gun violence solely through gun control would require draconian reductions in
- 15. the availability of guns for all private users, regardless of the legitimacy or severity of their need. This could result in serious economic or security consequences for some. Third, any proposal to take such drastic steps would trigger strong resistance and create equally strong incentive to circumvent them. The already powerful gun lobby would become more powerful, and demand could lead to lawlessness and criminal enterprises, as happened during prohibition. Mapping the Complex Solution While simple solutions to complex problems require draconian steps, a comprehensive approach can provide a gentler yet more effective path. Exploiting the full range of causation allows us to weave an elegant solution from the warp and woof of the problem itself. Such a solution creates fewer burdens on the society, reduces opposition, and minimizes collateral damage. Finding the path to such a solution is accomplished by tracing the high level system to its constituent elements, and then breaking each down into its contributors, consequences, and dependencies. This provides the map of actions available to solve the problem. The Case of Gun Violence The problem of gun violence has at least four major components to address: - Gun availability refers to everything that makes the gun effective, including: o The number and variety of guns in circulation, o How they and their ammunition are distributed and supported, o Training and self-regulation through industry standards, gun shops, etc. o Gun security, including theft prevention and locks to prevent unauthorized use o Government actions, such as registration and background checks. - Motivation addresses the reasons why someone would resort to gun violence: o Individual pathologies, including addiction, intoxication, and mental or emotional illness o Disaffection and anti-social attitudes arising from persecution, bigotry, and other biases o Individual desperation from poverty or other extreme pressures that cause the individual to act irrationally o Gangs, organized crime, and other collective behaviors. o Acts of terrorism arising from political or other movements - American culture puts great emphasis on guns due to: o Their role in our frontier experience, o Their support for a macho self-image, o Popular images of gun ownership as offering prestige and apparent power o Other cultural threads, such as anti-establishment activism. - Desensitization may make violence less repellant: o The way news media bring violence into the home,
- 16. o The amount and intensity of violence portrayed in movies, television, and other popular entertainment, o The intense realism of first person shooter games that allow individuals to commit simulated acts of great violence. Reducing gun availability has been the focus of enormous effort with little lasting effect. In some cases, efforts for greater gun control have led to looser laws and regulations. Managing the availability of guns must be part of the solution, but it cannot be the sole solution. Motivation is often referred to as either “radicalization” or “mental illness,” but there are many other factors that can lead a person to commit an act of violence. The study of medicine, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, business, education, and other disciplines each expose a sliver of the problem that can be worked. Many people involved in related fields, such as psychiatrists, drug counselors, social workers, even parole officers, all have their own experience and insight to contribute to the solution. When we integrate their efforts we go from a mob struggling for scraps of progress to a team making real headway toward common goals. The same approach would be applied to the other issues by including the appropriate communities with insights and resources needed for effective action. In every case, as the team grows, a virtuous cycle reduces the burden on each individual and sector. Exploiting our Collective Wisdom The first step is to assemble a team of people who understand the problem and the context in which it occurs. This begins with those who have been studying the problem with a deep personal investment, often victims and their families. The team is then broadened with experts in the relevant industries, like gun manufacturing and distribution, as well as the doctors, psychiatrists, sociologists, economists, and many others who are experts in the underlying problem areas. The next step is to bring in a small cadre of people with the systems analysis expertise and tools who can lead the team in an analysis of the full problem. The analysts are expert in dissecting the problem, breaking it down to its contributing elements, and bringing out the information that lies dormant in the many discipline experts. They also help identify the relationships and opportunities that offer paths to solving the problem. Transparency and collective understanding are key to maintaining the confidence and support of the team members. The third step is to assemble a set of corrective actions that will address the problem fairly and equitably over all of the contributing elements. No single group can be excessively impacted, but all should be expected to contribute to the solution. These corrective actions can be things as simple as industry standards or as complex as proposed government regulations, but all come with the consensus support of the team.
- 17. Appendix B: Implementation Plan Key Characteristics of the Center : - Non-governmental and not for profit. The Center will remain outside the spheres of influence of individual special interest groups, including government. - Balanced and independent. The Center will be completely transparent and inclusive, with a well-balanced input from all groups who comply with its standards of behavior. - Efficient. The Center will organize and harvest information developed by others to ensure modest staffing and funding requirements. - Experienced. The staff of the Center will be experienced systems managers led by experienced policy and management experts. - Non-partisan. The Center will be completely non-partisan and apolitical. Methodology: The Center will function as the integration mechanism to bring together the expertise and knowledge resident in existing special interest groups. Working collaboratively across the entire community of interested parties, it will identify appropriate problems to be worked by a team of deep discipline experts from all involved areas. Process: The Center will use a well-proven problem solving process: 1. Understand the problem. Center integration experts will develop a comprehensive understanding of the issue, its affected functions, participants, and other relevant information. This will begin with independent research and continue through the life cycle of the process. 2. Define initial goals. In a technical system this is called requirements definition. For public policy issues it is better referred to as establishing agreed-to goals. Initial goals will be refined as work progresses. 3. Model the system. The integrators develop a preliminary model that describes major participants, functional elements, inputs, outcomes, and critical interrelationships. 4. Consult with stakeholders. The preliminary model is discussed in detail with each stakeholder individually to gain buy-in and improve its accuracy. The final model will have buy-in from all stakeholders. 5. Developpotential solutions. Using the model, a series of meetings with stakeholders will explore the issues and develop potential solutions. The Center will perform needed analyses and lead/facilitate discussions. Proposed solutions will be modeled to assess their effectiveness, including both positive and negative consequences. Integrated assessments will use sensitivity studies, systems
- 18. dynamic modeling, and other tools to explore the effectiveness of various proposed solutions. 6. Recommend Action. Agreed-to solutions will be presented to the appropriate group for consideration of implementation. The Center has no authority to force implementation and may only propose solutions for consideration by industry, trade groups, government agencies, and/or legislative organizations. 7. Sustain. Society will continue to change, and most issue areas will require a long term process to maintain its health. The Center will maintain the relationships and a sustained expertise as priorities and resources permit. Products: The CSS will generate many products to support American society. The most obvious are potential solutions to individual issues promoted via reports, briefings, and other media. In addition, other collateral outcomes are equally important. These include: 1. Understanding. This work produces critical new insights into how society functions, particularly the ways in which individual elements interact with each other and society as a whole. This gives decision makers powerful insights to use in dealing with a wide range of problems. 2. Integrated model for society as a whole. Modeling the individual societal elements builds an evolving integrated model for the overall society. In this way what would otherwise be an overwhelming task (to model how the whole of human society functions) is achievable over time by building it incrementally. 3. Communications. This work both enables and requires a more precise and accurate conversation among societal elements. Today public argument often consists of sound bites used to stir emotional responses like anger and resentment. This contributes little to solving problem compared to more accurate, mature, and dispassionate discussion of the issues. 4. Transparency. All data is developed in the open and shared across the participants, beginning when the initial model is refined through discussions with the expert organizations. Developing potential solutions transparently shows the impact of structural, regulatory, or behavioral changes. As confidence in the model builds, people will better understand and share insights into costs and benefits. 5. Trust. The product of understanding, communications and openness is a steady growth in trust among the participants. Because fear and suspicion come from not knowing what is going on, this process will dramatically reduce those negative emotions. Trust will flourish as all participants feel like part of a team that can shape its own future. 6. Cooperation. The end result is a profound understanding of the society’s mutual interdependence along with a willingness to act for the good of the whole. Organization:
- 19. Because the Center is designed to make the best use of existing resources, it will only invest in elements not otherwise available. The best model for the Center is the systems engineering and integration function within a technical organization. Such SE&I functions typically form roughly 5% of the team. This modest size belies its critical role in a successful program. This model allows the Center to use a small and lean organization with a naturally flat management structure. This simple functional structure will be extraordinarily cost effective. The following shows the proposed structure for the functional organization. In addition to the salaried team the Center would seek guidance from a set of senior advisors for technical products and a Board of Directors for its programmatic planning and the selection of appropriate issue areas. Additional issue teams and other functions will be added as funding allows and justified by societal needs.
- 20. Appendix C: Systems Engineering Systems engineering is a robust approach to the design, creation, and operation of systems. The systems engineering process is often summarized in the systems engineering V: The process begins by developing a complete understanding of exactly what the system must do in a set of top level requirements for the system. Examples of such requirements are the total budget, available schedule, and mandatory technical performance required from the system. These top requirements lead to feasibility studies, and if the feasibility is good, a concept of operations document is used to capture how the system should work. This provides the context for decomposing the level 0 requirements into the lower level requirements for individual component designs. This is followed by steps to ensure that only valid requirements are accepted, and that the resulting designs are verified to ensure that they will satisfy them. Analyses and testing from the component to the systems level give high confidence that the proposed system can be built and will do what is expected of it.
- 21. Appendix D: Systems Dynamic Modeling Systems dynamic modeling is a growing field of analysis that uses systems theory to understand the way systems work. It is based on the fact that any system contains within it many relationships and functional cycles that can be modeled to understand how the system will react to changes in various inputs or stresses. These relationships are modeled as cyclical, interacting, and often temporally related interactions. The characteristics of these relationships are just as important to determining the overall performance of the system as are the capabilities of the individual functional elements themselves. In addition, the system can be seen to develop a unique identity and personality, i.e., to possess characteristics that are not necessarily observed in its constituent elements. Systems dynamics is often used by business in understanding market cycles and other inputs of interest to making investment decisions. It is seeing increased use in developing strategies for other decisions for governments and other societal elements. Systems dynamics is well accepted methodology in use by many business as well as outstanding academic institutions such as the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Center of Technology.
- 22. Appendix E: Tools and Products The Center for Systemic Solutions brings tools and techniques for solving societal issues. These tools have extensive history of supporting systems as they meet the purpose for which they were created. Examples include: Requirements definition and management – to ensure that the society is pursuing those goals that best serve the interests and needs of its citizens Modeling and simulation – to develop a deep understanding of the interrelationships between system elements and functions so that proposed solutions can be evaluated prior to implementation. System architecture – to develop a thorough understanding of how the system is intended to function Optimization – a process to analytically vary design parameters in search of the best possible system performance Systems dynamics – a process for modeling the way changes in one or more system elements produce effects elsewhere. This powerful technique is seeing limited application to social issues today. Risk management – a process for understanding the opportunities and consequences arising from requirements failing to be met for whatever reason. The product of risk management is a comprehensive understanding of the risks facing the system and a set of potential mitigations to reduce the risks. Decision making – a process for understanding the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Numerous tools have been developed to assess uncertainty in source data, analytical processes, estimations, risk in outcomes and other factors. Products include: A well-articulated model of how human society functions as a system made up of functional elements A working set of validated public consensus requirements for the system Ground rules and assumptions to guide the work for consistent results Interface definitions and requirements that describe how the elements work together, both currently and as proposed, including products to be exchanged, schedule, quality, and other characteristics Verification processes and products to prove all requirements have been met through the system design. Risk and mitigation strategies to control risks from unanticipated events, including design failures, natural disasters, economic downturns, etc.
- 23. Appendix F: CSS Supporters Engineers and Scientists Dr. Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, PhD Dr. Huw Price, PhD Dr. Laurie Leshin, PhD Dr. Lise Schioler, PhD Dr. David Peak,PhD Dr. Alan Wilhite, PhD Dr. Lisa Porter,PhD Dr. Leroy Chao, PhD,Astronaut Dr. Tim Adams, PhD,PE Dr. Joe Fragola, PhD, PE Dr. Jack Bacon,PhD, PE Dr. Michael Ryschwitsch, PhD,PE Dr. Juan Alonzo, PhD Dr. Scott Hubbard, PhD Dr. Mary Lynne Dittmar,PhD Dr. Anna DeJong, PhD Dr. William Edmonson, PhD Dr. Alan Wilhite, PhD Dr. Paul Wilde, PhD Dr. Catherine Wilde, PhD Dr. Scott Pace,PhD Dr. Steve Jurczyk, PhD Dr. Harold White, PhD Mr. William Gerstenmaier Mr. Jared Bell Mr. John Newcombe Mr. Gus Gustafero Mr. William Wilshire Mr. Jon Michael Smith Mr. Lee Graham, PE Mr. Fred Brooks Mr. Mike Kelly, PE Mr. Horacio de la Fuenta Ms. Kristin Farry, PE Mr. Alan Lockheed, PE Ms. Megan Mitchell Mr. Joel Montalbano Mr. Mike Matchula Mr. Thomas Martin, PE Mr. Jon Hall Mr. Mike Fossum, Astronaut Mr. Andrew Chaiken, author Mr. Timothy Adams, PE Ms. Doris Hamill, Ms. Kathy Leary Ms. Mellissa Gard Medical Doctors Dr. Massimiliano Fanni Canneles, MD Dr. Jim Logan MD Dr. Richard Williams MD Dr. Craig Fisher, MD Dr. Jon Clark MD Dr. Scott Parazinski, MD, Astronaut Other Senior Professionals Ms. Elena Cavucli Mr. Gary Hudson Mr. Stuart Witt Mr. Jeff Greason Mr. Greg Rasnake Mr. Chris Kunstedler