symptoms but ultimately worsening the underlying problems—like increased urban policing that leads to short-term reductions in crime rates but does nothing to alter the sources of embedded poverty and worsens long-term incarceration rates. Another systems thinking pioneer, Russell Ackoff, characterized wisdom as the ability to distinguish the short-term from the long-term effects of an intervention (Ackoff, 1989) The question is, How does the wisdom to transcend pressures for low-leverage symptomatic interventions arise in practice? (Senge et al., Forrester). RCCI recognizes this challenge and is taking the extended time to better understand the city’s systems in order to make more effective long-term decisions. We are following the maxim that to go fast you have to go slow. Currently we are engaged in a process of mapping the interconnected systems of City. At the end of a ground breaking 3 day workshop in late May 2016 with more than 90 civic, business, nonprofit, faith, and government leaders, and a number of citizens, we created work streams to address closed loops within the systems. Over a series of iterative sessions sectorknowledgeable stakeholders are co-creating maps and models of the sector under the direction of our two facilitators. We are creating systems maps of a number of sectors and their intersections and intend to run simulations for some. By doing this, the community can recognize the interconnections between sectors. The modelers’ expertise comes into play at this point. There are only a few expert systems modelers in the world who have worked on community-based systems. This field is new, though growing rapidly. Concurrently the Emerging Leaders Fellowship is engaged with community members around a vision for Rapid City 2025. A vision statement with strategies to address Rapid City’s basic issues will be collaboratively crafted at the end of Phase 2 and will serve as a guide for Phase 3 and beyond. Phase 3 will attend to: improving services by weaving the network long-term strategic planning align strategies into mutually reinforcing activities
symptoms but ultimately worsening the underlying problems—like increased urban policing that leads to short-term reductions in crime rates but does nothing to alter the sources of embedded poverty and worsens long-term incarceration rates. Another systems thinking pioneer, Russell Ackoff, characterized wisdom as the ability to distinguish the short-term from the long-term effects of an intervention (Ackoff, 1989) The question is, How does the wisdom to transcend pressures for low-leverage symptomatic interventions arise in practice? (Senge et al., Forrester). RCCI recognizes this challenge and is taking the extended time to better understand the city’s systems in order to make more effective long-term decisions. We are following the maxim that to go fast you have to go slow. Currently we are engaged in a process of mapping the interconnected systems of City. At the end of a ground breaking 3 day workshop in late May 2016 with more than 90 civic, business, nonprofit, faith, and government leaders, and a number of citizens, we created work streams to address closed loops within the systems. Over a series of iterative sessions sectorknowledgeable stakeholders are co-creating maps and models of the sector under the direction of our two facilitators. We are creating systems maps of a number of sectors and their intersections and intend to run simulations for some. By doing this, the community can recognize the interconnections between sectors. The modelers’ expertise comes into play at this point. There are only a few expert systems modelers in the world who have worked on community-based systems. This field is new, though growing rapidly. Concurrently the Emerging Leaders Fellowship is engaged with community members around a vision for Rapid City 2025. A vision statement with strategies to address Rapid City’s basic issues will be collaboratively crafted at the end of Phase 2 and will serve as a guide for Phase 3 and beyond. Phase 3 will attend to: improving services by weaving the network long-term strategic planning align strategies into mutually reinforcing activities
Interdisciplinary%20Studies%2C%20June%202016.docx