Impact Trust • Working glossary

System dynamics

A methodology for understanding how complex systems behave over time through feedback loops, delays, and accumulations.

Details

Our Take
The field that produced the famous 'Limits to Growth' study in 1972 and predicted 'rough water in the 2020s' fifty years ago. Technically rigorous but the models can feel opaque. The insight -- that good foresight without preparedness is its own tragedy -- is the takeaway. Provides the intellectual foundation for the preparedness space framework.
Examples of Use
MIT, Donella Meadows, Club of Rome,
Synonyms/Variants
Systems modelling; Feedback analysis; Stock-and-flow modelling
Typical everyday wording
The science of how systems behave over time.