Systems thinking · 5/6
Local optimization: faster for whom?
Use net resolution and rework to examine local targets.
About 15–20 minutes. The following cases are fictional.
Record your first judgment
A team rewards only daily ticket closures; repeat complaints rise.
Understand the judgment process
Improving one metric can move costs downstream. Examine end-to-end outcomes rather than a department’s throughput alone.
Closing ten with four reopened yields six net exits; closing eight with one reopened yields seven. Counts still do not fully measure quality.
Checks you can perform
- Define the user’s final goal.
- Track rework and transferred burdens.
- Inspect quantity, quality and waiting together.
- Use a small reversible trial.
Guided practice
Compare ten processed with 40% returning versus eight with 12.5% returning.
Explore the explanation
Under same-day returns, net resolutions are six and seven. Real comparisons also require task difficulty, time and quality.
Apply it in a new context
What might rewarding only the number of practice questions miss?
Compare after attempting
Understanding, error correction and transfer to new problems. Add independent application criteria rather than simply reducing all practice.
Preserve an intervention record
A distorted metric does not prove malicious behavior. Inspect incentives and measurement too.
Check whether you supplied inspectable evidence, a feasible next step and intervention conditions. Revealing an answer is not mastery.
Source and scope
Donella Meadows — Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System
The source provides conceptual or methodological background. Cases, steps and exercises are authored here; they are not the original experiment or evidence of this course’s effectiveness.
Completion is a personal record, not proof of mastery or certification.